Current Time in Kikuyu, Kenya

Kikuyu is a town in Kiambu County in central Kenya, lying about twenty kilometres west of the centre of Nairobi on the high ground at the edge of the Rift Valley escarpment. At an altitude of nearly two thousand metres, it enjoys a cool and often misty climate, with red volcanic soil, tea and coffee smallholdings, and eucalyptus stands surrounding an increasingly built-up centre.

The wider urban area now holds well over three hundred thousand people, and it continues to expand rapidly as Nairobi spreads outwards. Kikuyu functions as a satellite town, providing housing for people who work in the capital while retaining its own trading centre, markets and agricultural hinterland. It carries an added significance as the historic heartland of the Kikuyu people, the largest ethnic community in Kenya, whose name it shares.

The town's modern history began with the arrival of the Church of Scotland Mission in 1898, which chose the site of Thogoto for its station. The mission built the Church of the Torch, one of the oldest churches in Kenya, along with schools, a hospital and a teacher training college, and from these institutions grew much of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa. The colonial railway reached the town early, and the surrounding land became a point of tension, since fertile Kikuyu farmland was alienated for European settlement. The area was consequently at the centre of the political and religious debates of the early twentieth century and of the independence movement that followed.

Landmarks reflect this missionary and educational past. The Church of the Torch, completed in 1929 in stone, remains in use. Alliance High School, founded in 1926 as the first secondary school for Africans in Kenya, has educated a remarkable share of the country's political and professional leadership and stands among the most respected institutions in East Africa. Ondiri Swamp, a rare quaking bog whose floating mat of vegetation shifts underfoot, is a natural curiosity and an important water source, and the Ngong Hills and the Rift Valley viewpoints lie a short drive away.

Daily life mixes rural and urban rhythms. Markets sell potatoes, cabbages, bananas and dairy produce from the surrounding farms, matatu minibuses fill the roads, and small workshops, churches and colleges give the streets a busy, youthful feel. Kikuyu music, from traditional song to the popular benga style, is heard everywhere, and community groups and church choirs form the backbone of social life.

Transport is good. The Southern Bypass and the main road and railway towards Naivasha and Nakuru pass through, and the standard gauge railway and commuter services have improved links to Nairobi. Jomo Kenyatta International Airport is about an hour away across the city.

Education remains the town's strongest asset, with Alliance High School and its girls' counterpart, the Presbyterian University of East Africa, a large campus of the University of Nairobi at nearby Kikuyu offering education and medical training, and numerous colleges.

Kikuyu is important as a centre of Kenyan education and Presbyterian history, and as a growing town where the countryside and the expanding capital meet.