Kisumu is a port city in western Kenya at 1,131 m (3,711 ft). It is the third largest city in Kenya, the principal city of western Kenya, the capital of Nyanza Province and the headquarters of Kisumu District. It has no municipal charter. It is the largest city in Nyanza Province and second most important city after Kampala in the greater Lake Victoria basin.
Kisumu is location of the Kisumu Impala Sanctuary. Measuring just 0.4 square miles (1.0 km2), the sanctuary is one of Kenya's smallest wildlife preserves. As its name suggests, it is home to a herd of impala. Some hippos, as well as many reptiles and birds are also present. Additionally, several caged baboons and leopards who faced difficulties of one sort or the other in the wild are held in cages there.
Hippo Point is a 600 acres (240 ha) viewing area on Lake Victoria. Despite its name, it is better known as a viewing point for its unobstructed sunsets over the lake than for its occasional hippos.
Hippo point is near the village of Dunga, a few kilometres SW of the town. The village also has a fishing port and a camping site.
Attractions in the city include Kibuye Market, the Kisumu Museum, an impala sanctuary, a bird sanctuary, Hippo Point, and the nearby Kit Mikaye and Ndere Island National Park.
Kisumu Museum, established in 1980, has a series of outdoor pavilions. Some of the pavilions contain live animals. For example, one pavilion contains numerous aquaria with a wide variety of fish from Lake Victoria, along with explanatory posters. Another pavilion contains terrarium containing mambas, spitting cobras, puff adders and other venomous Kenyan snakes. Additionally, out of doors, the museum has a few additional exhibits, including a snake pit and a crocodile container.
Other pavilions show weaponry, jewellery, farm tools and other artifacts made by the various peoples of the Nyanza Province.
Kit Mikayi, a large rock with three rocks on top, and is located off Kisumu Bondo Road towards Bondo. Kit-mikayi means “Stones of the first wife” or “First Wife Rocks” in Dholuo, the Luo language. It is a weeping rock; it is believed that Mikayi (literally, "the first wife") went up the hill to the stones when her husband took a second wife, and has been weeping ever since.
It has become a popular local pilgrimage site for Legio Marians who come to the rock to pray and fast for several weeks at a time.