section_path: History/German Protectorate (1885–1890)
section_name: German Protectorate (1885–1890)
paragraph_text: German Protectorate (1885–1890)
  
  The colonial history of Kenya dates from the establishment of a German Empire protectorate over the Sultan of Zanzibar 's coastal possessions in 1885, followed by the arrival of the Imperial British East Africa Company in 1888. Imperial rivalry was prevented by the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty, Germany handed its East African coastal holdings to Britain in 1890.