The East African mountains are a mountain region in the

African Great Lakes The African Great Lakes (; ) are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. The series includes Lake Victoria, the second-largest freshwater lake in the world by area; Lake Tangan ...

, within

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

Rwanda Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by ...

and

Burundi Burundi, officially the Republic of Burundi, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is located in the Great Rift Valley at the junction between the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa, with a population of over 14 million peop ...

Location and description

The mountains are related to the

East African Rift The East African Rift (EAR) or East African Rift System (EARS) is an active continental rift zone in East Africa. The EAR began developing around the onset of the Miocene, 22–25 million years ago. It was formerly considered to be part of a l ...

, and are in two chains. The Western Rift includes the

Virunga Mountains The Virunga Mountains (also known as Mufumbiro) are a chain of volcanoes in East Africa, in the area where Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Uganda meet. The mountain range is a branch of the Albertine Rift Mountains, ...

Mitumba Mountains The Mitumba Mountains stretch along the Western Rift Valley in Eastern Congo (DRC), west of Lake Tanganyika and Lake Kivu. The two main peaks, Mount Kahuzi (3,308 m) and Mount Biéga (2,790 m) are dormant volcanoes. The northern po ...

, and the Rwenzori Range, while the mountains to the east include the largest

peaks PEAKS is a proteomics software program for tandem mass spectrometry designed for peptide sequencing, protein identification and quantification. Description PEAKS is commonly used for peptide identification (Protein ID) through de novo peptide ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

: the snow-covered

Mount Kilimanjaro Mount Kilimanjaro () is a dormant volcano in Tanzania. It is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world, at above sea level and above its plateau base. It is also the highest volcano i ...

(5,895m, 19,340 ft), and

Mount Kenya Mount Kenya (Meru people, Meru: ''Kĩrĩmaara,'' Kikuyu people, Kikuyu: ''Kĩrĩnyaga'', Kamba language, Kamba: ''Ki nyaa'', Embu language, Embu: ''Kĩ nyaga'') is an extinct volcano in Kenya and the Highest mountain peaks of Africa, second-highe ...

(5,199m, 17,058 ft). Other mountains in the Eastern Rift area include

Mount Elgon Mount Elgon is an extinct shield volcano on the border of Uganda and Kenya, north of Kisumu and west of Kitale. The mountain's highest point, named "Wagagai", is located entirely within Uganda.

in Kenya and Uganda. All but the Ruwenzori are of

volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

origin. The weather at the highest elevations is often cold and wet.

Fauna

The mountains are rich in wildlife, including animals who migrate to higher altitudes during the hot season in the surrounding

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

. The mountains are home to a number of

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

bird species, such as Hinde's babbler, which lives only on Mount Kenya.

Threats and preservation

The lower elevations of the mountains have been extensively used for forestry and growing tea and

coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...

. Much of the original forest has been lost, including the

cloud forest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, Montane forest, montane, Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist forest characteri ...

that once covered much of Kilimanjaro. Climbing these mountains is a major attraction, and Kilimanjaro National Park attracts hundreds of visitors each year, many of whom access the mountain from the coffee-growing town of Moshi.

Exploration

The mountains were discovered by

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

ans in order of distance from the

coast A coast (coastline, shoreline, seashore) is the land next to the sea or the line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. Coasts are influenced by the topography of the surrounding landscape and by aquatic erosion, su ...

, which also happens to be in decreasing order of height. They were also explored and climbed in this order.The Mountain Club of Kenya Guide to Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro, Iain Allan. (1998) Mountain Club of Kenya.

References

{{coord, 0.1, S, 37.2, E, display=title, type:mountain-source:wikidata Afromontane Montane grasslands and shrublands Ecoregions of Africa Great Rift Valley Mountain ranges of Kenya Mountain ranges of Uganda Mountain ranges of Tanzania Mountain ranges of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Mountain ranges of Rwanda Mountain ranges of Burundi sv:Eastern Highlands (berg)