Mount Kilimanjaro - Africa s Highest Summit
Mount Kilimanjaro stands on a functionless part of the East African plateau, on the Tanzanian side of the Kenya border close to Moshi, side by side with the smaller Mount Meru. These mountains are extinct volcanoes, with Kilimanjaro truly being the agglomeration of three distinct volcanoes, Kibo (5896m/ 19,340 ft), Mwenzi (5,149 / sixteen,896 ft) and Shira (3,962m / 13,000 ft). Kilimanjaro's violent creation is geologically associated with the creation of the Great Rift Valley, 100km to the West.
Mount Kilimanjaro was born of the catastrophic movements in the Earth's crust that created the Nice Rift Valley that runs from the Red Sea by means of Tanzania to Southern Africa. Around 25 million years ago East Africa was a huge flat plain that buckled and ruptured after the African and Eurasian Continental Plates rebounded off each other inflicting big rifting and weak spots within the thinning crust that led to the formation of many volcanoes in the region. Where the unique valley was deepest, the volcanic exercise was greatest ultimately forming the huge volcanoes of Ngorongoro Crater on the Rift itself and a string of volcanoes to the East together with Meru, Kenya and Kilimanjaro.
Mount Kilimanjaro has 5 major ecological zones and the exercise inside every of those is controlled by the five factors of altitude, rainfall, temperature, flora and fauna. Every zone occupies an area approximately 1000m in altitude and is topic to a corresponding decrease in rainfall, temperature and life from the forest upwards.
The East African mountains have created a micro-climate around themselves and the rain-shadow created to their South and East provides the beautiful and superbly fertile land in which the cities of Moshi and Arusha are located, full of banana groves and coffee plantations. Kilimanjaro National Park comprises all the mountain above the tree line and 6 forest corridors that stretch via the forest belt.
Mount Kilimanjaro National Park is the area above 2,700 meters on the mountain. Kilimanjaro Nationwide Park contains the moorland and highland zones, Shira Plateau, Kibo and Mawenzi peaks. In addition, the Kilimanjaro Park has six corridors or rights of way through the Kilimanjaro Forest Reserve. The Forest Reserve, which can be a Game Reserve, was established in 1921 the Park was established in 1973 and formally opened in 1977.
Origin of the name "Kilimanjaro"
There are a lot of explanations for the way the Mount Kilimanjaro got its name and nobody can agree what's the truth. "Mountain of Greatness", Mountain of Whiteness", "Mountain of Caravans", are all names derived from the Swahili and Chagga dialects.
From the little we know on the topic, it's thought it might need something to do with the Swahili word "kilima", which suggests "prime of the hill". There's also a claim that the word "kilemakyaro" exists within the Chagga language, that means "inconceivable journey". However the reality is that no one really knows.