Lake Baringo is, after Lake Turkana, the most northern of the Great Rift Valley lakes of Kenya, with a surface area of about 130 sq km. The lake is fed by two rivers, El Molo and Ol Arabel and has no obvious outlet, despite this it being one of the two freshwater lakes in the Rift Valley in Kenya, the other being Lake Naivasha. It lies off the beaten track in a hot and dusty setting and over 470 species of birds have been recorded there, occasionally including migrating flamingos.

This area is little affected by tourism and is situated at the southern end of a region of Kenya inhabited largely by pastoralist tribesmen including Samburu, Rendille , Turkana and Kalenjin.