Kenya

Kenya Background

Founding president and liberation struggle icon Jomo KENYATTA led Kenya from independence until his death in 1978, when President Daniel Toroitich arap MOI took power in a constitutional succession. The country was a de facto one-party state from 1969 until 1982 when the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) made itself the sole legal party in Kenya. MOI acceded to internal and external pressure for political liberalization in late 1991. The ethnically fractured opposition failed to dislodge KANU from power in elections in 1992 and 1997, which were marred by violence and fraud, but are viewed as having generally reflected the will of the Kenyan people. President MOI stepped down in December of 2002 following fair and peaceful elections. Mwai KIBAKI, running as the candidate of the multiethnic, united opposition group, the National Rainbow Coalition, defeated KANU candidate Uhuru KENYATTA and assumed the presidency following a campaign centered on an anticorruption platform.

Kenya Information

• Population: 32,021,856 note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the
• Nationality: noun: Kenyan(s) adjective: Kenyan
• Location:: Eastern Africa, bordering the Indian Ocean, between Somalia and Tanzania
• Religions:: Protestant 45%, Roman Catholic 33%, indigenous beliefs 10%, Muslim 10%, other 2% note: a large majority of Kenyans are Christian, but estimates for the percentage of the population that adheres to Islam or indigenous beliefs vary widely
• Ethnic Groups:: Kikuyu 22%, Luhya 14%, Luo 13%, Kalenjin 12%, Kamba 11%, Kisii 6%, Meru 6%, other African 15%, non-African (Asian, European, and Arab) 1%
• Land Boundaries:: total: 3,477 km border countries: Ethiopia 861 km, Somalia 682 km, Sudan 232 km, Tanzania 769 km, Uganda 933 km
• Area: total: 582,650 sq km water: 13,400 sq km land: 569,250 sq km
• Coast Line: 536 km
• Climate: varies from tropical along coast to arid in interior
• Terrain: low plains rise to central highlands bisected by Great Rift Valley; fertile plateau in west
• Maritime Claims: territorial sea: 12 nm exclusive economic zone: 200 nm continental shelf: 200-m depth or to the depth of exploitation
• Land Use: arable land: 8.08% permanent crops: 0.98% other: 90.94% (2001)
• Environmental Issues: water pollution from urban and industrial wastes; degradation of water quality from increased use of pesticides and fertilizers; water hyacinth infestation in Lake Victoria; deforestation; soil erosion; desertification; poaching
• Natural Resources: gold, limestone, soda ash, salt, rubies, fluorspar, garnets, wildlife, hydropower
• Highways: total: 63,942 km paved: 7,737 km unpaved: 56,205 km (2000)
• Railways: total: 2,778 km narrow gauge: 2,778 km 1.000-m gauge (2003)
• Ports & Harbours: Kisumu, Lamu, Mombasa
• Airports: 221 (2003 est.)