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Portal:Kenya

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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. Its second-largest and oldest city is Mombasa, a major port city located on Mombasa Island. Other major cities within the country include Kisumu, Nakuru & 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 to 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...)


Coffee production is a significant contributor to the economy of Kenya. The industry is noted for its cooperative system of production, processing, milling, marketing, and auction system. About 70% of Kenyan coffee is produced in small farms that control about 75% of the land under production. It was estimated in 2012 that there were about 150,000 coffee farmers in Kenya. Other sources suggest that 6 million Kenyans are employed directly or indirectly in the coffee industry.

The acidic soil in the highlands of central Kenya together with just the right amount of sunlight and rainfall provide excellent conditions for growing coffee plants. However, due to a property boom in areas that grow coffee and price instability, production in this African Great Lakes country fell from about 130,000 tonnes in 1987/8 to 40,000 tonnes in 2011/12. (Full article...)

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Tea Plantation near Kericho Town
Tea Plantation near Kericho Town
Tea Plantation near Kericho Town, Kericho County.

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Sunset at Lake Baringo
Sunset at Lake Baringo

Baringo County is a county in midwestern Kenya. Its capital and largest town is Kabarnet. The county has a population of 555,561 (2009 census) and an area of 11,075.3 km2 (4,276.2 sq mi).

The county is named after local Lake Baringo.

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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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In the news

Wikinews Kenya portal
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21 May 2025 – Kenya–Uganda relations
Kenya admits that it assisted Uganda in the kidnapping of opposition politician Kizza Besigye in Nairobi in November 2024. Besigye was later taken to Uganda, where he is currently on trial. (Barron's)
18 May 2025 –
Kenyan politician Martha Karua, who legally represents incarcerated Tanzanian opposition figure Tundu Lissu, is arrested at Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and set for deportation. (France 24)
30 April 2025 –
Kenyan parliament member Charles Ong'ondo is shot to death in Nairobi by unknown gunmen on a motorcycle in an apparent assassination. (BBC News)
21 April 2025 – 2025 Boston Marathon
In long-distance running, Kenyan road runner John Korir wins the men's competition at the Boston Marathon with a time of 2:04:45 which, along with his brother Wesley Korir's win in 2012, makes them the first and only set of brothers to win the event. (The New York Times)
Kenyan athlete Sharon Lokedi wins the women's competition with a time of 2:17:22 and sets the new course record, surpassing Buzunesh Deba's record in 2014. (WBZ-TV)
27 March 2025 – Haitian crisis
A Kenyan police officer deployed in Haiti as part of the Multinational Security Support Mission is killed in a suspected gang ambush, according to Haitian authorities. Kenya has confirmed that the officer is missing but has not yet verified his death. (BBC News)

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Credit: Matt Rudge
Mombasa is the largest urban centre in Kenya's coastal region and the 2nd largest city in the country it also hosts East and Central Africa's Largest port.

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