Portal:Kenya

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Kenya portal
Kenya portal

Introduction

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, is the major port city of Mombasa, situated on Mombasa Island in the Indian Ocean and the surrounding mainland. Mombasa was the capital of the British East Africa Protectorate, which included most of what is now Kenya and southwestern Somalia, from 1889 to 1907. 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...)


The Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP) was a spending plan initiated by the Government of Kenya to boost economic growth and lead the Kenyan economy out of the 2007–2008 Kenyan crisis and the Great Recession. It was introduced in the 2009/2010 Budget Speech in parliament by Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta. Its aim was to jumpstart the Economy of Kenya towards long term growth and development, after the 2007–2008 Kenyan crisis and post-election violence that affected the Kenyan economy. Other economic problems included prolonged drought, a rally in oil prices and food prices, and the effects of the Great Recession. The stimulus was a response to the decline in the economic growth rate from 7.1% in 2007 to 1.7% in 2009.

The total budget allocated amounted to KSh.22 billion/= (260 million US$), with the money going towards the construction of schools, horticultural markets, jua kali sheds and public health centres in all the 210 constituencies. (Full article...)
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Mount Kenya
Mount Kenya
Sunrise over Mount Kenya. Mount Kenya is the highest mountain in Kenya, and the second-highest in Africa (after Mount Kilimanjaro).

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Marsabit-Moyale Rd
Marsabit-Moyale Rd

Marsabit County is a county of Kenya. Its capital is Marsabit and its largest town Moyale. The county has a population of 291,166.

The county is located in northern Kenya. It borders the eastern shore of Lake Turkana. (Read more...)

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Tower of Lamu Fort

Lamu Fort is a fortress in the town of Lamu in northeastern Kenya. Originally situated on the waterfront, the fort today is located in a central position in the town, about 70 metres (230 ft) from the main jetty on the shore.

Lamu Fort was built between 1813 and 1821 with Omani assistance. Initially it provided a base from which the Omanis consolidated their control of the East African coast but the town later lost its economic importance. During the British colonial period, and after the independence of Kenya, the fort was used as a prison. Today it houses an environmental museum and library, and is often used for community events. (Full article...)

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Esau Khamati Oriedo 1990 Nairobi, Kenya

Esau Khamati Sambayi Oriedo (29 January 1888 – 1 December 1992) was a Kenyan Christian evangelist, a philanthropist, an entrepreneur and a trade unionist, a veteran of World War I and World War II as a soldier in the King's African Rifles (KAR), a barrister, and an anti-colonialism activist.  In 1923 he singlehandedly altered the Christian church landscape in Bunyore and the rest of North Nyanza region—in the present-day western and Nyanza regions of Kenya. He was an indomitable adept all-around crusader for a myriad of polygonal causes—the rights of the aboriginal peoples, a stalwart advocate for the syncretism of Christianity and traditional African cultural moralities, and a literacy champion—in the British East African Protectorate & Colony of Kenya, during the period that span more than five decades (1910s – 1960s) of the colonial and postcolonial epoch.

In 1952 – 1957 he was detained at Kapenguria together with Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and other fellow Kenyan freedom fighters reminiscent of Chief Koinange Wa Mbiyu (d. 1960) by the British colonial government in Kenya, under the so-called emergency rule. Besides, he endured unadulterated torture, denied legal representation and visitation by his family and confrères; and he bore the arrogation of all his business enterprises, financial, and real-estate property, confiscated as a penal measure by the colonial authorities. In the early 1930s Esau Oriedo and Jeremiah Othuoni (1898 – c. 1958) of Enyaita successfully, through forceful civil disobedience, advocated for the chieftainship of Bunyore; in what was one of the earliest successful self-determination local movement uprising directed principally against the provincial colonial government in British East Africa. Before that, Bunyore was still under the jurisdiction of the Paramount Chief, Nabongo Mumia of Wanga (d. 1949). Mumia had in 1926 been appointed, by the British colonial government, paramount chief of all four traditionally aligned districts of western Kenya; which included the people of Bunyore. He was one of the first two council members from Bunyore to serve as a district representative in the colonial era District House Assembly known as the Local Native Council (LNC) of North Nyanza; one of the 26 countrywide local native legislative units enacted by the colonial government in 1924. Additionally, serving a tenure as the council's chairperson. His aptly articulative adept championing of secular education led to the North Nyanza LNC secular education initiative that gave rise to the founding of the Government African School Kakamega, present-day Kakamega High School; the first secular secondary school and the impetus of the modern-day public education system in Kenya. Esau Oriedo went on to be elected to multiple terms as a councilman in the County Council of Kakamega in the nascent post-colonial Kenya, before voluntarily stepping down to pave way for the younger generation, whom he continued to coach and mentor. In 1964 he successfully spearheaded the election to the national parliament of Edward Eric Khasakhala, the first member of parliament (MP) from Bunyore. (Full article...)
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Wikinews Kenya portal
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25 April 2024 – 2023–2024 El Niño event
2024 Kenya floods
Floods caused by weeks of heavy rains in Kenya have killed at least 38 people, according to the Red Cross. (Reuters) (The Washington Post) (The Washington Post)
24 April 2024 – 2024 Kenya floods
Widespread flooding occurs in Nairobi, Kenya, with tens of thousands of people affected. (BBC News)
18 April 2024 –
A Kenya Air Force Bell UH-1H Huey II crashes in Elgeyo-Marakwet County, Kenya, killing ten people, including Chief of Defence Forces Francis Omondi Ogolla. President William Ruto declares three days of national mourning. (BBC News)
15 April 2024 –
Fifty-eight people have been killed in Tanzania and 13 people have been killed in Kenya in the past two weeks by flooding caused by torrential rains, with more than 125,000 people in coastal areas of East Africa affected by the flooding. Tanzania announces plans to construct fourteen dams in an attempt to reduce the damage from future floods. (AP)
1 March 2024 – Haitian crisis
Kenyan president William Ruto announces an agreement with Haiti to deploy 1,000 police officers as part of a mission approved by the United Nations to combat gang violence in the Caribbean nation. (Reuters)

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Credit: Trees ForTheFuture
Nakuru, is the largest urban centre in midwestern Kenya and the fourth largest urban centre in the country.

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