East Africa: Highlands, Lakes and the Swahili Coast

East Africa combines high, cool plateaus with a warm Indian Ocean coast. The Ethiopian Highlands and the Kenyan and Tanzanian highlands receive more rain and are cooler than the surrounding lowlands, which is why they support dense farming populations and crops such as coffee and tea. Coffee is believed to have originated in Ethiopia. Along the coast, monsoon winds that reverse direction with the seasons allowed sailors for centuries to trade between East Africa, Arabia, India and beyond.

That trade produced Swahili culture, a blend of African, Arab and Persian influences, and cities like Kilwa, Mombasa, Zanzibar and Lamu. Swahili, a Bantu language with many Arabic loanwords, became a lingua franca across the region. Today East Africa's geography also supports tourism in savanna parks such as the Serengeti, whose annual wildebeest migration follows the rains, and regional cooperation through the East African Community.