Kenya

B

Principal Cities

Nairobi, with a population of 2,143,020 (1999), is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The main seaport is Mombasa, population 660,800 (1999), built mostly on an offshore island of the same name. Other important cities are Kisumu, 194,390 (1999), a port city on Lake Victoria and capital of Nyanza province; Nakuru, 219,366 (1999), the capital of Rift Valley Province; and Eldoret, 137,016 (1999), a rail centre north-east of Kisumu.

C

Religion

The population of Kenya is about 38 per cent Protestant, 28 per cent Roman Catholic, and 6 per cent Muslim. The remaining people are largely followers of various traditional religions.

D

Language

Swahili (also called Kiswahili; 131,000 speakers), a Niger-Congo language, and English are the official languages of Kenya, although English is spoken mainly as a second language; 59 other languages are spoken. Nearly all the African ethnic groups in Kenya have their own distinct languages. Also from the Niger-Congo language family, the following are widely used: Gikuyu (5,350,000 speakers), Luyia (3,400,000), Kamba (2,448,000), Gusii (1,582,000), and Meru (1,305,000). Kalenjin (2,458,000) and Luo (3,185,000), from the Nilo-Saharan family, are also spoken widely. (See also African Languages.)

E

Education

Education is not compulsory in Kenya, but the first eight years of primary school education are provided free by the government. In 1993 some 5.4 million pupils attended about 15,800 primary schools with a teaching staff of more than 173,000, and some 517,500 students attended more than 2,600 secondary and teacher-training schools staffed by some 18,400 teachers.

Kenya has seven university-level public institutions: the University of Nairobi (founded 1956) and Kenyatta University (1965), both in Nairobi; Egerton University (1939), in Nakuru; Moi University (1984), in Eldoret; the Jomo Kenyatta University College of Agriculture and Technology (1981) in Nairobi; Maseno University (1990) in Maseno; and the specialist International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) (1970) in Nairobi. Specialized colleges included Mombasa Polytechnic (1948) in Mombasa; and the Kenya Conservatoire of Music (1944), Kenya Polytechnic (1961), and Strathmore College (1960) in Nairobi. Some 88,000 students were enrolled at higher education level. Adult literacy in 2005 was 86.9 per cent. In 2002–2003, 7.1 per cent of the country’s gross national product (GNP) was spent on education.

F

Culture

Many of Kenya’s foremost cultural institutions are in either Nairobi or Mombasa. In Nairobi are the National Museums of Kenya, which include exhibits on natural history and geology; the Kenya National Archives; and the McMillan Memorial Library, with a special collection of Africana. In Mombasa is the Fort Jesus Museum, a history museum housed in a 16th-century Portuguese fort. The Kitale Museum features displays on scientific and historical topics.