Kikuyu people
The earliest account of Nairobi's history dates back to 1899 when a railway depot was built in a brackish African swamp occupied only by a pastoralist people, the Maasai, the sedentary Akamba people, as well as the agriculturalist Kikuyu people who were all displaced by the colonialists. The railway complex and the building around it rapidly expanded and urbanized until it became the largest city of Kenya and the country's capital. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase "Enkare Nyirobi", which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, Nairobi is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun."