Eastleigh, Nairobi Eastleigh, Nairobi Eastleigh is a suburb of Nairobi, Kenya. It is located east of the central business district. Predominantly inhabited by Somali immigrants, it has been described as "Little Mogadishu", as well as "a country within a country with its own economy" on account of its robust business sector. Eastleigh was founded in 1921. At this time, it was formally called Nairobi East Township and was mostly populated by Somalis who had moved from the Ngara Plains. While the colonial government originally tried to segregate citizens by race and ethnicity, failures at doing so in the Eastleigh neighborhood more or
History of Nairobi plague and the subsequent burning down of the original town. By 1905, Nairobi was a humming commercial center and replaced Mombasa as capital of the British East Africa. The city expanded, supported by the growth in administrative functions and in tourism, initially in the form of British big game hunting. As the British colonialists explored the region, they began using Nairobi as their first stop. This prompted the colonial government to build several grand hotels in the city for British tourists and big game hunters. Nairobi continued to grow under British rule, and many Britons settled within the city's suburbs.