Naivasha is a large town in

Nakuru County Nakuru County is a county in Kenya. It is County number 32 out of the 47 Kenyan Counties. Nakuru County is a host to Kenya's Forth City – Nakuru City. On 1 December 2021, President Uhuru Kenyatta awarded a City Charter status to Nakuru, ranki ...

, Kenya, lying by road north west of Nairobi.

Overview

The town has a total population of 198,444 (2019 census). The main industry is agriculture, especially floriculture. Naivasha is also a popular tourist destination. Hell's Gate National Park (the main locations for '' The Lion King'', including Pride Rock and the Gorge, are modelled after the park),Olkaria Geothermal Spa,

Mount Longonot National Park Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...

and Mount Longonot are nearby attractions. Tours also have included Lake Naivasha, to observe birdlife and hippopotamus behaviour, as well as other wild animals. In the late 1970s–1980s Lake Naivasha was overrun with poachers and foreign creatures introduced into the lake to provide fishing. The migratory paths along lake Naivasha were being destroyed by the local rose industry. The naturalist

Joan Root Joan Root (18 January 1936 – 13 January 2006) was a Kenyan conservationist, ecological activist and Oscar-nominated filmmaker. With her film-maker husband, Alan Root she made a series of acclaimed wildlife films. The couple divorced in 1981 and ...

(1936–2006), spent the last decade of her life trying to save the lake and its wildlife. A resort in Naivasha was the location for much of the negotiations of the

Comprehensive Peace Agreement The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA, ar, اتفاقية السلام الشامل, Ittifāqiyyah al-salām al-šāmil), also known as the Naivasha Agreement, was an accord signed on January 9, 2005, by the Sudan People's Liberation Moveme ...

ending the Second Sudanese Civil War, commonly known as the "Naivasha Agreement".

Population

The town is home to the Isahakia community, descendants of Isaaq soldiers and traders that settled in Kenya in the 1900s. Naivasha-Nakuru Road in the rain

People

Naivasha is situated in the Rift Valley basin which has attracted various tribes for settlement. The

Maasai Maasai may refer to: * Maasai people *Maasai language * Maasai mythology * MAASAI (band) See also * Masai (disambiguation) * Massai Massai (also known as: Masai, Massey, Massi, Mah–sii, Massa, Wasse, Wassil or by the nickname "Big Foot" Mas ...

people were the first group to settle on the basin due to their quest for pasture and water for their livestock. This is rumored to have been around the 15th century when they moved down from the present day Sudan. Later in the 16th century, the

Bantu Bantu may refer to: *Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages *Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language * Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle *Black Association for National ...

people including various tribes started their migration into the basin from the Central African forests. The most populous tribe in Naivasha is the

Kikuyu Kikuyu or Gikuyu (Gĩkũyũ) mostly refers to an ethnic group in Kenya or its associated language. It may also refer to: *Kikuyu people, a majority ethnic group in Kenya *Kikuyu language, the language of Kikuyu people *Kikuyu, Kenya, a town in Centr ...

. European settlers are also major settlers in Naivasha. They arrived in the 19th century.

Transport

Naivasha is located on the shore of Lake Naivasha along the Nairobi– Nakuru highway (

A104 road This is a list of roads designated A104. Roads entries are sorted in the countries alphabetical order. * A104 road (England), the road from Islington Green to Epping in London, England * A104 road (Kenya), the road from Nairobi, Kenya to the Ta ...

) and the Uganda Railway. In 2015, an extension of the new

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in Ea ...

railway to this town was approved.

References

External links

Naivasha Satellite map and local surroundings
{{Authority control Nakuru County Populated places in Rift Valley Province