Jade Sea - Lake Turkana

Lake Turkana, also known as the Jade Sea, was originally named Lake Rudolph in 1888 and was renamed Lake Turkana in 1975. Lake Turkana is famous for its greenish-blue colors, hence the nickname the Jade Sea. It is the largest alkaline lake in the world.

The lake is famous for its greenish-blue colors, and it is known for the strong desert wind, making sailing on the lake sometimes disastrous. At a length of 300 km in the North-South direction and a width of 50 km, Lake Turkana is the largest alkaline lake in the world as well as the largest lake in Kenya, though Lake Victoria, shared between Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, is much larger.

At an altitude of only 300m above sea level, Lake Turkana is one of the hottest places in Kenya (and the world) with temperatures in the region often reaching 50 degrees C. The area is regarded by many as the birthplace of humanity, and the fossil humanoid skulls discovered here by the Leakey family in the 1960s are around 2.5 million years old. In Sibiloi National Park on the lake’s eastern shore, you can visit some of the excavations, and you can also see many different species of animals.