Republic of Kenya

                   Republic of Kenya

Geography

Area: 580,367 sq. km. (224,080 sq mi.); slightly smaller than Texas.

Cities: Capital--Nairobi (pop. 2.9 million; 2007 est.). Other cities--Mombasa (828,500; 2006 est.), Kisumu (650,846; 2005-6), Nakuru (1.3 million; 2005-6), Eldoret (193,830; 1999).

Terrain: Kenya rises from a low coastal plain on the Indian Ocean in a series of mountain ridges and plateaus which stand above 3,000 meters (9,000 ft.) in the center of the country. The Rift Valley bisects the country above Nairobi, opening up to a broad arid plain in the north. Highlands cover the south before descending to the shores of Lake Victoria in the west.

Climate: Tropical in south, west, and central regions; arid and semi-arid in the north and the northeast.

People 

Nationality: Noun and adjective--Kenyan(s).

Population (August 2010 est.): 39 million.

Major ethnic groups: Kikuyu 6.6 million, Luhya 5.3 million, Luo 4 million, Kalenjin 5 million, Kamba 3.9 million, Kisii 2.2 million, Mijikenda 1.9 million.

Religions: Christian 82.6%, Muslim 11.2%, traditional African religions 5%, Hindu/Sikh/Baha'i/Jewish 1%.

Languages: English (official), Swahili (national), over 40 other languages from the Bantu, Nilotic, and Cushitic linguistic groups.

Education: First 8 years of primary school are provided tuition-free by the government. In January 2008, the government began offering a program of free secondary education, subject to some restrictions. Attendance--92% for primary grades. Adult literacy rate--74%.

Health: Infant mortality rate--57.4/1,000. Life expectancy--55.3 yrs (2007 est.).

Government

Type: Republic.

Independence: December 12, 1963.

Constitution: 1963; new constitution approved in an August 4, 2010 referendum.

Branches: Executive--president (chief of state, commander in chief of armed forces), prime minister (head of government), and two deputy prime ministers. Legislative--unicameral National Assembly (parliament). Judicial--Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court, various lower and special courts, including Kadhi (Sharia) courts.

Administrative subdivisions: 140 districts, joined to form 7 rural provinces. The Nairobi area has special provincial status. Under the new constitution, which is in the process of being implemented, the primary administrative subdivisions will be 47 counties, each with an elected governor.

Political parties: Over 40 registered political parties. Two coalitions, the Party of National Unity (PNU) and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), dominate the political party scene. PNU membership is filled by parties representing Kikuyu and closely related ethnic groups; ODM membership ranks are filled by parties representing nearly everybody else. PNU and ODM agreed in February 2008 to form a coalition government in a power-sharing arrangement that ended the political crisis erupting after disputed national elections in December 2007.
Suffrage: Universal at 18.

Talking in Kenya

Languages in Kenya

Kenya is a multilingual country. The Bantu Swahili language and English are widely spoken as lingua franca, and are the two official languages.

According to Ethnologue, there are a total of 69 languages spoken in Kenya. This variety is a reflection of the country's diverse population that includes most major ethnic, racial and linguistic groups found in Africa (see Languages of Africa).

The two major language families spoken in Kenya are the Bantu and the Nilotic groups. There is also a Cushitic minority, besides Arab, Hindustani and British immigrants.

Multilingualism

Kenya is a country where multilingualism is profoundly practiced.

Next to over fifty indigenous languages and dialects, neither Swahili nor English, both official languages, can be considered a true lingua franca of Kenya. Swahili is also the national language while English is the international language, an otherwise common situation compared to the rest of the world.

Not everyone in Kenya can speak Swahili or English. In everyday communication, most people prefer using their mother tongue. People living along the coast speak better Swahili than people living in central highlands of Kenya. This can be attributed to the fact that some primary schools in Kenya (especially those in very rural Kikuyu land), teach vernacular in lower grades (1,2,3) and pupils are tested on it. The reason why they are taught vernacular is because all the pupils come from surrounding regions and speak the same dialect.This is not the case with every school in Kenya. 

On the other hand, schools in western, Northern, and South Kenya don't do that normally because there are pupils who have different dialects and therefore not possible to teach the regional dialect. This could be the underlying factor of why people in Western and Coastal Kenya speak Swahili more fluently than any other part of the country.

There are forty different people groups in Kenya today and approximately the same number of dialects. Most of them are confined to specific regions. e.g., Kikuyu in central Kenya, Luo in western and Nyanza, Kamba in eastern and so on.