The national animal of Kenya is the lion (Panthera leo). Its standing is customary rather than set by a separate decree, and it rests mainly on the coat of arms adopted at independence in 1963, where two golden lions hold spears on either side of a traditional East African shield. From there the lion has spread to the presidential standard of 1963, the lion’s-head watermark on Kenyan banknotes, the 500-shilling note of 2019 and the 10-shilling coin of 2018. The real animal lives in parks such as the Maasai Mara, Tsavo and Nairobi National Park, and the IUCN has listed it as Vulnerable since 1996.
The Two Lions of the 1963 Coat of Arms
The coat of arms is the lion’s most important appearance, because it is the version the state reproduces on everything official. Kenyan law sets out a formal heraldic blazon. The supporters are “on either side a lion or”, a golden lion, each “grasping in the interior forepaw a spear of estate”, with the shafts of the two spears crossed behind the shield. The lions stand on a silhouette of Mount Kenya, Africa’s second-highest mountain, whose foreground shows the country’s main crops: coffee, pyrethrum, sisal, tea, maize and pineapples.
The shield between them carries the national colours: black for the people, red for the blood shed in the struggle for freedom, green for agriculture and natural resources, and white for unity and peace. On the red band a white cockerel grips an axe and strides forward, a sign of a new dawn and the will to work. The cockerel was also the emblem of the Kenya African National Union (KANU), the party that led Kenya to independence. Beneath everything a scroll bears the national motto, Harambee, Swahili for “all pull together”. The word also names a Kenyan tradition of community fundraising.
In the official symbolism the lions stand for protection, guarding the shield and what it represents. They are paired with the shield and spears, which the official description says symbolise unity and the defence of freedom, so that a symbol of defence surrounds a symbol of the people and their work.
The lion is not on the national flag. The flag, officially adopted on 12 December 1963, uses the same black, red and green with white edges, but its centrepiece is a red, white and black Maasai shield with two crossed spears. Kenya’s founders gave the lion a supporting role: it guards the emblem rather than forming it, and our post on the flag of Kenya covers how that design was negotiated between the rival parties KANU and KADU.
A Red Lion on the Colony Badge, 1920–1963
The lion was a symbol of Kenya before Kenya was independent. The Colony and Protectorate of Kenya was created in 1920. The colony was formed by annexation on 23 July of that year and the coastal protectorate on 29 November. Its badge, used until 1963, was a single red lion rampant on a dark blue disc.
The independence designers kept the animal but changed what it meant. The colonial lion stood alone, a heraldic beast in the British tradition of lions on royal and imperial arms. The 1963 lions became a matched pair of golden supporters holding African spears and defending a shield that carried the colours of the independence movement. The colours themselves came from the Kenya African Union, whose 1952 flag was black, red and green. Kenya is one of many countries whose banners and arms carry the animal; our guide to flags with lions shows how widespread it is.
The Presidential Standard: Lions in 1963, Spears Today
The first presidential standard, used from 1963 to 1970, was the national tricolour with the full coat of arms in the centre: the two golden lions, their spears, the shield and the Harambee scroll. On that standard the lions flew on a flag.
Later standards became personal to each president, with versions for Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel arap Moi, Mwai Kibaki, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto. The current standard is a yellow field with the Maasai shield and crossed spears, together with a wheelbarrow. It has no lion. The lions remain part of the presidency through the coat of arms itself, which the state uses as its emblem.
Lions on the Shilling: the 2018 Coins and 2019 Notes
Money is where most Kenyans meet the lion every day. The Kenyan shilling replaced the East African shilling at par on 14 September 1966. For decades the coins and notes carried presidential portraits: Jomo Kenyatta until 1978, Daniel arap Moi from 1980, and Kenyatta again from the 2003–2005 issues. One feature links the later series. The 1996 and 2004 notes, like the current ones, carry a lion’s head as their watermark, visible when a note is held up to the light.
The 2010 Constitution changed the designs. Section 231(4) allows notes and coins to show images that symbolise Kenya, but “may not bear the portrait of any individual”. The Central Bank of Kenya responded with a new coin series on 11 December 2018 in denominations of 1, 5, 10 and 20 shillings. Every coin shows the coat of arms, with its two lions, on one side. On the other side each shows one large African animal:
- 1 shilling: giraffe
- 5 shillings: rhinoceros
- 10 shillings: lion, on a 23 mm, 5-gram bimetallic coin
- 20 shillings: elephant
New banknotes followed on 31 May 2019. All five share the Kenyatta International Convention Centre on the front, and each pairs it with one of the Big Five: buffalo on the 50, leopard on the 100, rhinoceros on the 200, lion on the 500 and elephant on the 1,000. The reverse of the 500-shilling note is themed “Tourism”, a nod to the safari trade the lion helps sustain. A full tour of the series is in our guide to the currency of Kenya.
Tsavo, the Mara and Nairobi: Where Kenya’s Lions Live
Behind the heraldry is a real population. In 2006 Kenya was estimated to hold about 2,000 lions, about 675 of them in the Tsavo national parks. Across Kenya and Tanzania, lion populations are now split into 17 separate patches. Lions in Kenya range from the coastal lowlands to the mountains: they have been recorded at 3,600 m (11,800 ft) on Mount Elgon and close to the snow line on Mount Kenya. Males living above about 800 m in the Kenyan highlands grow heavier manes than lions in the hotter lowlands of the east and north. One exceptionally heavy male near Mount Kenya weighed 272 kg (600 lb).
The Maasai Mara National Reserve in Narok County is the best known. Its name comes from the Maa word for “spotted”, after the scattered bushes on the plains. The reserve began as a 520 km² sanctuary in 1961 and has covered 1,510 km² since 1984. It runs directly into Tanzania’s Serengeti, and the great migration of some 1.3 million wildebeest and about 200,000 zebras crosses the Mara River. Lions are the reserve’s dominant carnivore. Our guide to the Great Migration follows the herds across the border.
Tsavo East, established in April 1948 over a semi-arid area once called the Taru Desert, covers 13,747 km². Together with Tsavo West it forms about 22,000 km² of protected land. Tsavo’s adult males often lack manes entirely, and one Tsavo pride that was studied always had only one adult male. That is an exception: the average pride holds about 15 lions with up to four males, and prides of up to 30 have been seen. Tsavo is also where, between March and December 1898, two maneless males attacked the camps of workers building the Uganda Railway bridge over the Tsavo River. At least 28 workers were officially recorded as killed before Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Patterson shot the lions on 9 and 29 December 1898. Their skins have been in Chicago’s Field Museum since 1924.
Nairobi National Park, established in 1946 about 7 km south of the capital, covers only 117 km². Even so, it holds lions within sight of the capital’s skyline, and since 2005 it has been treated as a Lion Conservation Unit.
Vulnerable Since 1996: Living Alongside Kenya’s Lions
The lion has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1996, because populations in African countries have fallen by about 43% since the early 1990s. In Kenya the 1990s brought a sharp drop, driven by the poisoning of lions and the poaching of the antelope and zebra they depend on. Hunting was banned inside Tsavo after independence in 1963, and management of the park passed to the authority that became the Kenya Wildlife Service.
The main pressure today is conflict with herders. Kenya has about 1.19 million Maasai people, according to the 2019 census, and Maasai pastoralists share much of the southern lion range with their cattle. Among the Maasai, killing a lion was traditionally a rite of passage. As lion numbers fell, elders discouraged solo hunts in favour of olamayio, group hunting, which gives the population more chance to recover. Lion hunting is illegal in Kenya, and Wikipedia notes that olamayio is sometimes used to justify retaliation against lions suspected of killing livestock. Around Nairobi National Park, where the city and its livestock press against the park boundary, some landowners see the animals as a threat rather than an asset.
The animal guarding Kenya’s coat of arms needs guarding itself. It survives in fragments of habitat, depends on the tourism shown on the back of the 500-shilling note, and relies on herders who bear the cost of living beside it. The lions on the crest have not changed since 1963. Whether their living counterparts keep the same range will depend on how well Kenya’s parks and the people around them can share the land.