The Demographics of Kenya is monitored by the Kenyan National Bureau of Statistics. Kenya is a multi-ethnic state in East Africa. Its total population was at 47,558,296 as of the 2019 census.[1]
A national census was conducted in 1999, although the results were never released. A new census was undertaken in 2009, but turned out to be controversial, as the questions about ethnic affiliation seemed inappropriate after the ethnic violence of the previous year.[2] Preliminary results of the census were published in 2010.[3]
Kenya's population was reported as 47.6 million during the 2019 census compared to 38.6 million inhabitants 2009, 30.7 million in 1999, 21.4 million in 1989, and 15.3 million in 1979.[4] This was an increase of a factor of 2.5 over 30 years, or an average growth rate of more than 3 percent per year. The population growth rate has been reported as reduced during the 2000s, and was estimated at 2.7 percent (as of 2010), resulting in an estimate of 46.5 million in 2016.[5] As of 2024 kenya has 770,255 refugees and asylum seekers [6]
Population
Census population
Year
Pop.
±% p.a.
1962
9,980,563
—
1969
10,942,705
+1.32%
1979
15,327,061
+3.43%
1989
21,448,636
+3.42%
Year
Pop.
±% p.a.
1999
28,686,607
+2.95%
2009
38,610,097
+3.02%
2019
47,564,296
+2.11%
According to the 2022 revision of the World Population Prospects[7][8], the total population was 53,005,614 in 2021 compared to 6,077,000 in 1950, and around 1,700,000 in 1900. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2010 was 42.5%, 54.9% between the ages of 15 and 65, and 2.7% was 65 years or older.[9] Worldometers estimates the total population at 48,466,928 inhabitants, a 29th global rank.[10]
Year
Total population
Population percentage
aged 0–14
aged 15–64
aged 65+
1950
6 077 000
39.8%
56.3%
3.9%
1955
6 980 000
42.8%
53.4%
3.8%
1960
8 105 000
46.4%
49.9%
3.7%
1965
9 505 000
48.4%
48.0%
3.6%
1970
11 252 000
49.1%
47.5%
3.4%
1975
13 486 000
49.6%
47.1%
3.3%
1980
16 268 000
50.0%
47.1%
3.0%
1985
19 655 000
50.0%
47.2%
2.8%
1990
23 447 000
49.0%
48.3%
2.7%
1995
27 426 000
46.5%
50.8%
2.7%
2000
31 254 000
44.3%
52.9%
2.8%
2005
35 615 000
42.7%
54.5%
2.8%
2010
40 513 000
42.5%
54.9%
2.7%
2019
47 564 296
39.0%
57.1%
3.9%
Population by Sex and Age Group (Census 24.VIII.2009):[11]
Age Group
Male
Female
Total
%
Total
19 192 458
19 417 639
38 610 097
100
0–4
3 000 439
2 938 867
5 939 306
15.38
5–9
2 832 669
2 765 047
5 597 716
14.50
10–14
2 565 313
2 469 542
5 034 855
13.04
15–19
2 123 653
2 045 890
4 169 543
10.80
20–24
1 754 105
2 020 998
3 775 103
9.78
25–29
1 529 116
1 672 110
3 201 226
8.29
30–34
1 257 035
1 262 471
2 519 506
6.53
35–39
1 004 361
1 004 271
2 008 632
5.20
40–44
743 594
732 575
1 476 169
3.82
45–49
635 276
637 469
1 272 745
3.30
50–54
478 346
477 860
956 206
2.48
55–59
359 466
352 497
711 953
1.84
60–64
295 197
298 581
593 778
1.54
65-69
183 151
207 612
390 763
1.01
70-74
160 301
179 000
339 301
0.88
75-79
99 833
118 675
218 508
0.57
80+
159 125
224 576
383 701
0.99
Age group
Male
Female
Total
Percent
0–14
8 398 421
8 173 456
16 571 877
42.92
15–64
10 191 627
10 514 320
20 705 947
53.63
65+
602 410
729 863
1 332 273
3.45
Unknown
11 478
9 608
21 086
0.05
Population by Sex and Age Group (Census 24.VIII.2019) (The figure for both sexes includes intersex persons.):[12]
Kenya has a very diverse population that includes most major ethnic, racial and linguistic groups found in Africa. Bantu, Cushitic and Nilotic populations together constitute around 99% of the nation's inhabitants.[18] People from Asian or European heritage living in Kenya are estimated at around 0.3% of the population.[19]
Bantus are the single largest population division in Kenya. Most Bantu are farmers. Some of the prominent Bantu groups in Kenya include the Kikuyu, the Kamba, the Luhya, the Kisii, the Meru, and the Mijikenda.
In Kenya's last colonial census of 1962, population groups residing in the territory included European, African and Asian individuals.[20] According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, Kenya had a population of 47,564,296 by 2019. The largest native ethnic groups were the Kikuyu (8,148,668), Luhya (6,820,000), Kalenjin (6,358,113), Luo (5,066,966), Kamba (4,663,910), Somalis (2,780,502), Kisii (2,703,235), Mijikenda (2,488,691), Meru (1,975,869), Maasai (1,189,522), and Turkana (1,016,174). Foreign-rooted populations included Asians (90,527), Europeans (42,868) with Kenyan citizenship, 26,753 without, and Kenyan Arabs (59,021).[21] The number of ethnic categories and sub-categories recorded in the census has changed significantly over time, expanding from 42 in 1969 to more than 120 in 2019.[22]
Bantus are the single largest population division in Kenya. The term Bantu denotes widely dispersed but related peoples that speak south-central Niger–Congo languages. Originally from Cameroon-Nigeria border regions, Bantus began a millennium-long series of migrations referred to as the Bantu expansion that first brought them south into East Africa about 2,000 years ago.
Most Bantu are farmers. Some of the prominent Bantu groups in Kenya include the Kikuyu, the Kamba, the Luhya, the Kisii, the Meru, and the Mijikenda. The Swahili people are descended from Wangozi Bantu peoples that intermarried with Arab immigrants.[23][24]
The Kikuyu, who are one of the biggest tribes in Kenya, seem to have assimilated a significant number of Cushitic speakers. Evidence from their Y DNA shows that 18% of Kikuyu carry the E1b1b Y DNA.[25]
Nilotes are the second-largest group of peoples in Kenya. They speak Nilo-Saharan languages and went south into East Africa from Western Asia and North Africa by way of South Sudan.[23] Most Nilotes in Kenya are historically pastoralists. The Nilotes are divided into the river lake Nilotes and the highland nilotes. These divisions are related to where they occupied after they relocated to Kenya. Where the Luo are affiliated with the river lake occupancy as they can be found near Lake Victoria. The Kalenjin along others are affiliated with the highland occupancy as they are found around the highland areas of the country. The most prominent of these groups include the Luo, the Maasai, the Samburu, the Iteso, the Turkana, and the Kalenjin.[23] Similar to the Bantu, some Nilotic systems of governance (such as Ibinda of the Nandi[26]) bear similarities with those of their Cushitic neighbors (such as the Gada system[27] of the Oromo).[28]
The Cushitic people form a small minority of Kenya's population. They speak languages belonging to the Afroasiatic family and originally came from Ethiopia and Somalia. However, some large ethnic Somali clans are native to the area that used be known as NFD in Kenya. These people are not from Somalia but share the same ethnicity as the majority in Somalia. Most of them are herdsmen and have almost entirely adopted Islam.[29] Cushites are concentrated in the northernmost North Eastern Province, which borders Somalia.[30]
The Cushitic people are divided into two groups: the Southern Cushites and the Eastern Cushites.
The Southern Cushites were the second-earliest inhabitants of Kenya after the indigenous hunter-gatherer groups,[31] and the first of the Cushitic-speaking peoples to migrate from their homeland in the Horn of Africa about 2,000 years ago.[29] They were progressively displaced in a southerly direction or absorbed, or both, by the incoming Nilotic and Bantu groups until they wound up in Tanzania.[29] There are no Southern Cushites left in Kenya. (The Dahalo were originally pre-Cushitic peoples who adopted the language of their dominant Southern Cushitic neighbors sometime toward the last millennium BC.[32]).
The Eastern Cushites include the Oromo and the Somali. After the Northern Frontier District (North Eastern Province) was handed over to Kenyan nationalists at the end of British colonial rule in Kenya, Somalis in the region fought the Shifta War against Kenyan troops to join their kin in the Somali Republic to the north. Although the war ended in a cease-fire, Somalis in the region still identify and maintain close ties with their kin in Somalia and see themselves as one people, since like most borders in Africa and Asia, national borders were arbitrarily drawn in colonial European countries, especially during the Scramble for Africa[33]
An entrepreneurial community, they established themselves in the business sector, particularly in Eastleigh, Nairobi.[34]
Asians living in Kenya are descended from South Asian migrants. Significant Asian migration to Kenya began between 1896 and 1901 when some 32,000 indentured labourers were recruited from British India to build the Kenya-Uganda Railway.[35] The majority of Kenyan Asians hail from the Gujarat and Punjab regions.[36] The community grew significantly during the colonial period, and in the 1962 census Asians made up a third of the population of Nairobi and consisted of 176,613 people across the country.[36]
Since Kenyan independence large numbers have emigrated due to racism-related tensions with the Bantu and Nilotic majority. Most Asians are concentrated in the manufacturing sector.[30] According to the 2019 Census, Kenyan Asians number 47,555 people, while Asians without Kenyan citizenship number 42,972 individuals.[21] In 2017, Kenyans of Asian Heritage were officially recognised as the 44th tribe of Kenya.[37]
Europeans in Kenya are primarily the descendants of British migrants during the colonial period. There is also a significant expat population of Europeans living in Kenya. Economically, all Europeans in Kenya belong to the middle- and upper-middle-class. Nowadays, only a small minority of them are landowners (livestock and game ranchers, horticulturists and farmers), with the majority working in the tertiary sector: in air transport, finance, import, and hospitality. Apart from isolated individuals such as anthropologist and conservationist Richard Leakey, F.R.S., who died in 2022, Kenyan-Europeans have completely retreated from Kenyan politics, and are no longer represented in public service and parastatals, from which the last remaining staff from colonial times retired in the 1970s.[38] According to the 2019 Census, Kenyan Europeans number 42,868 people, while Europeans without Kenyan citizenship number 26,753 individuals. 0.3% of the population of Kenya is either from Asia or Europe.[21]
Arabs
Arabs form a small but historically important minority ethnic group in Kenya. They are principally concentrated along the coast in cities such as Mombasa, Malindi, Lamu, and Nairobi. A Muslim community, they primarily came from Oman and Hadhramaut in Yemen, and are engaged in trade. Arabs are locally referred to as Washihiri or, less commonly, as simply Shihiri in the Bantu Swahili language, Kenya's lingua franca.[30] According to the 2019 Census, Kenyan Arabs number 59,021 people.[21]
Kenya's various ethnic groups typically speak their mother tongues within their own communities. The two official languages, English and Swahili, serve as the main lingua franca between the various ethnic groups. English is widely spoken in commerce, schooling and government.[39] Peri-urban and rural dwellers are less multilingual, with many in rural areas speaking only their native languages.[40]
According to Ethnologue, there are a total of 69 languages spoken in Kenya. Most belong to two broad language families: Niger-Congo (Bantu branch) and Nilo-Saharan (Nilotic branch), which are spoken by the country's Bantu and Nilotic populations, respectively. The Cushitic and Arab ethnic minorities speak languages belonging to the separate Afro-Asiatic family, with the Indian and European residents speaking languages from the Indo-European family.[41]
↑ WOODWARD, P. (1 April 1999). "Conflict, Age and Power in North East Africa: Age systems in transition". African Affairs. 98 (391): 286–287. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a008035.
↑ Randall L. Pouwels, Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and Traditional Islam on the East African Coast, 800–1900, Volume 53 of African Studies, (Cambridge University Press: 2002), p.9.
Balaton-Chrimes, Samantha (2011). "Counting as Citizens: Recognition of the Nubians in the 2009 Kenyan Census". Ethnopolitics. 10 (2): 205–218. doi:10.1080/17449057.2011.570983. S2CID145695783.
Weitzberg, Keren (2015). "The Unaccountable Census: Colonial Enumeration and ITS Implications for the Somali People of Kenya". The Journal of African History. 56 (3): 409–428. doi:10.1017/S002185371500033X. S2CID153521428.)
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