Nairobi is the capital of Kenya, and an important political and economic center in East Africa. It is located inland, in highlands. The estimated population in 2007 was in excess of 2 million.
There is a Nairobi Stock Exchange, and Nairobi houses branches of major international financial institutions. It has a substantial industrial sector that accounts for 20 percent of the national product.
In 1998, it was, along with Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the target of an al-Qaeda 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in Africa. The truck bomb caused extensive damage to nearby civilian buildings and hundreds of Kenyan deaths.