Portal:Kenya

Kenya portal
Kenya portal

Introduction

Location of Kenya
The flag of Kenya

Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. Kenya's capital and largest city is Nairobi. The second-largest and oldest city is Mombasa, a major port city located on Mombasa Island. Other major cities within the country include Kisumu, Nakuru and Eldoret. Going clockwise Kenya is bordered by South Sudan to the northwest (though much of that border includes the disputed Ilemi Triangle), Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the east, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, Tanzania to the southwest, and Lake Victoria and Uganda to the west.

Kenya's geography, climate and population vary widely. In western rift valley counties, the landscape includes cold, snow-capped mountaintops (such as Batian, Nelion, and Point Lenana on Mount Kenya) with vast surrounding forests, wildlife, and fertile agricultural regions in temperate climates. In other areas, there are dry, arid, and semi-arid climates, as well as absolute deserts (such as Chalbi Desert and Nyiri Desert).

Kenya's earliest inhabitants included some of the first humans to evolve from ancestral members of the genus Homo. Ample fossil evidence for this evolutionary history has been found at Koobi Fora. Later, Kenya was inhabited by hunter-gatherers similar to the present-day Hadza people. According to archaeological dating of associated artifacts and skeletal material, Cushitic speakers first settled in the region'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 Africa. Modern-day Kenya emerged from a protectorate, established by the British Empire in 1895 and the subsequent Kenya Colony, which began in 1920. 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. Numerous disputes between the UK and the colony led to the Mau Mau revolution, which began in 1952, and the declaration of Kenya's independence in 1963. After independence, Kenya remained a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The country's current constitution was adopted in 2010, replacing the previous 1963 constitution. (Full article...)


Potatoes harvested from a Kenyan farm.

Agriculture in Kenya dominates Kenya's economy. 15–17 percent of Kenya's total land area has sufficient fertility and rainfall to be farmed, and 7–8 percent can be classified as first-class land. In 2006, almost 75 percent of working Kenyans made their living by farming, compared with 80 percent in 1980. About one-half of Kenya's total agricultural output is non-marketed subsistence production.

Agriculture is also the largest contributor to Kenya’s gross domestic product (GDP). In 2005, agriculture, including forestry and fishing, accounted for about 24 percent of the GDP, as well as 18 percent of wage employment and 50 percent of revenue from exports. (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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Mombasa Downtown

Mombasa is the second-largest city in Kenya, with a population of about one million. A regional cultural and economic hub, Mombasa has a large port and an international airport, and is an important regional tourism centre. Located on the east coast of Kenya, in Mombasa County and the former Coast Province, Mombasa's bordering the Indian Ocean made it a historical trading centre, and it has been controlled by many countries because of its strategic location.

Administratively, Mombasa is the capital of, and is coincident with, Mombasa County.. (Read more...)

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The 2013 CECAFA Cup (known as the GOtv CECAFA Challenge Cup for sponsorship reasons) was the 37th edition of the annual CECAFA Cup, an international football competition consisting of the national teams of member nations of the Council for East and Central Africa Football Associations (CECAFA). The tournament was held in Kenya from 27 November to 12 December.

Contested by twelve national teams, the tournament had Zambia invited as a guest nation to fill in for Djibouti, who failed to participate for a second consecutive year. This followed the tournament's recent tradition of inviting other African nations to take part once a CECAFA nation pulled out; Malawi were invited to take part in the previous edition held in Uganda, while they and Zimbabwe took part in 2011 after Eritrea withdrew from the competition. (Full article...)

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Yego in 2015

Julius Yego (born 4 January 1989) is a Kenyan track and field athlete who competes in the javelin throw. Nicknamed "Mr. YouTube" because he learned how to throw by watching YouTube videos of javelin athletes, Yego is the African record holder for the event with a personal best of 92.72 m.

He won the javelin title at the All-Africa Games in 2011 and at the African Championships in Athletics in 2012 and 2014; at the 2013 World Championships he placed fourth, losing a medal in the final round. In 2014, he became the first Kenyan to win a Commonwealth Games gold medal in a field event. At the 2015 World Championships he won the gold medal with a throw of 92.72m, becoming the first Kenyan to win a World Championships gold medal in a field event. He won silver at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. (Full article...)

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In the news

Wikinews Kenya portal
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16 July 2025 – Spillover of the Somali civil war
Al-Shabaab militants claim to have killed three Kenyan soldiers patrolling a road in the east of the country near the Somali border. (Reuters)
9 July 2025 – Somali Civil War
At least seven Kenyan police officers are injured after an al-Shabaab roadside bomb strikes their patrol truck on a highway east of Mandera in Kenya, near the border with Somalia. (Hiiraan Online)
7 July 2025 – 2025 Kenyan protests
Eleven people are killed and 29 others are injured in clashes with security forces amid ongoing anti-government protests in Kenya, according to the National Commission on Human Rights. (Sky News) (Reuters)
30 June 2025 – 2025 Kenyan protests
A civilian vendor shot at close range by police during protests over the death of Albert Ojwang in Nairobi, Kenya, succumbs to his injuries in hospital after being declared brain-dead, bringing the death toll from nationwide protests in Kenya to 20. (CTV News) (DW)
25 June 2025 – 2025 Kenyan protests
At least 16 people are killed and over 400 others are injured, including demonstrators, police officers and journalists, when police clash with protestors during nationwide anti-government protests across Kenya. (CTV News)
13 June 2025 – Kenya Finance Bill protests
Kenyan police constable James Mukhwana is arrested over the death of blogger Albert Ojwang, which prompted protests and clashes with police this week. (Al Jazeera) (BBC News)

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Upper Hill Panorama
Upper Hill Panorama
Panorama of Upper Hill, an emerging business district within Nairobi.

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