Location of Kenya

The flag of Kenya

Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya (Swahili: Jamhuri ya Kenya), is a country in East Africa. A member of the African Union with a population of more than 47.6 million in the 2019 census, Kenya is the 28th most populous country in the world and 7th most populous in Africa. Kenya's capital and largest city is Nairobi, while its oldest and second largest city, which until 1907 was also Kenya's first capital city, is the major port city of Mombasa which includes Mombasa Island in the Indian Ocean and the surrounding mainland. Other important cities include Kisumu and Nakuru. Kenya is bordered by South Sudan to the northwest, Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the east, Uganda to the west, Tanzania to the south, and the Indian Ocean to the southeast. Kenya's geography, climate and population vary widely, ranging from cold snow-capped mountaintops (Batian, Nelion and Point Lenana on Mount Kenya) with vast surrounding forests, wildlife and fertile agricultural regions to temperate climates in western and rift valley counties and further on to dry less fertile arid and semi-arid areas and absolute deserts (Chalbi Desert and Nyiri Desert).

Kenya's earliest inhabitants were hunter-gatherers, like the present-day Hadza people. According to archaeological dating of associated artifacts and skeletal material, Cushitic speakers first settled in Kenya's lowlands between 3,200 and 1,300 BC, a phase known as the Lowland Savanna Pastoral Neolithic. Nilotic-speaking pastoralists (ancestral to Kenya's Nilotic speakers) began migrating from present-day South Sudan into Kenya around 500 BC. Bantu people settled at the coast and the interior between 250 BC and 500 AD.

European contact began in 1500 AD with the Portuguese Empire, and effective colonisation of Kenya began in the 19th century during the European exploration of the interior. Modern-day Kenya emerged from a protectorate established by the British Empire in 1895 and the subsequent Kenya Colony, which began in 1920. Numerous disputes between the UK and the colony led to the Mau Mau revolution, which began in 1952, and the declaration of independence in 1963. After independence, Kenya remained a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The current constitution was adopted in 2010 and replaced the 1963 independence constitution.

Kenya is a presidential representative democratic republic, in which elected officials represent the people and the president is the head of state and government. Kenya is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, COMESA, International Criminal Court, as well as other international organisations. With a GNI of 1,840, Kenya is a lower-middle-income economy. Kenya's economy is the second largest in eastern and central Africa, after Ethiopia, with Nairobi serving as a major regional commercial hub. Agriculture is the largest sector; tea and coffee are traditional cash crops, while fresh flowers are a fast-growing export. The service industry is also a major economic driver, particularly tourism. Kenya is a member of the East African Community trade bloc, though some international trade organisations categorise it as part of the Greater Horn of Africa. Africa is Kenya's largest export market, followed by the European Union. (Full article...)

• ... that Gloria Orwoba raised awareness about period poverty by appearing in the Senate of Kenya in apparently blood-stained trousers?
• ... that in 2009, Doreen Nabwire became the first Kenyan woman to play professional football in Europe?
• ... that a European settler in Kenya who tortured a black employee to death in 1920 was sentenced to just two years' imprisonment?
• ... that the first Olympic volleyball match in more than 16 years for Kenya's Malkia Strikers is being played today in Tokyo against Japan?
• ... that British outrage at the sentencing of a white Kenyan settler to just two years' imprisonment for the 1923 killing of a black employee eventually led to the replacement of the colony's legal code?
• ... that squatters were one of the groups that started the Mau Mau rebellion?

22 December 2023 –

Kenya's anti-corruption commission charges the country’s former tourism minister and two others with economic crimes for the alleged fraud of tens of millions of dollars in inflated costs for the construction of a hospitality college. (AP)

12 December 2023 – Visa policy of Kenya

Kenyan President William Ruto announces that all tourists will no longer require a travel visa to enter the country from January, with the visa being replaced by electronic travel authorisation. (Reuters)

10 December 2023 –

A nationwide power outage occurs in Kenya as a result of possibe sabotage of the country's electrical grid, according to Transport Minister Kipchumba Murkomen. (BBC News)

27 November 2023 – 2023 Africa floods

The death toll from floods in Kenya rises to 76 as 40,000 people are displaced from their homes. (AP)

27 November 2023 –

International Criminal Court Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem terminates all further investigations into crimes related to the 2007–2008 Kenyan crisis, following the collapse of cases against six suspects, including former and current Presidents Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, due to insufficient evidence and witness tampering. (AFP via VOA)

19 November 2023 – 2023 Africa floods

The death toll from the floods in Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia, increases to 130 people. The Somali town of Beledweyne has been completely submerged after the Shebelle River burst its banks, forcing 90% of the population out of their homes, while 30,000 people are displaced in Kenya as hundreds of homes have been destroyed. (AP)

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