Westlands is located approximately 3.2 kilometres (2 mi), by road, northwest of the central business district of Nairobi.

[2] Westlands is a residential district in Nairobi which houses a sizable population of upper middle class and wealthy Kenyans[3] During the 1990s and early 2000s, as land and office space became scarce and exorbitantly priced in the central business district, more businesses have relocated to Westlands and Upper Hill, where land and office space are more readily available and less expensive.

Westlands was initially considered part of the Parklands area and straddled what is now Waiyaki Way, originally the Kenya-Uganda Railway.

In 2005 a private firm, with police support, began bulldozing homes, an act the Kenyan high court deemed illegal.

[8] In 2021, a significant part of the southern areas of the settlement was cleared to enable the construction of the long-planned Parklands section of the Ring Road.