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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 54.2 million as of mid-2026, it is the 27th-most populous country in the world and the seventh-most populous in Africa. Kenya's capital and largest city is Nairobi. The second-largest and oldest city is Mombasa, a port city located on Mombasa Island. Other major cities within the country include Kisumu, Nakuru and Eldoret. Going clockwise, Kenya is bordered by South Sudan to the northwest, 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. Its geography, climate and population vary. In western Rift Valley counties, the landscape includes cold, snow-capped mountaintops (such as Batian, Nelion, and Point Lenana on Mount Kenya) with surrounding forests, wildlife, and fertile agricultural regions in temperate climates. In other areas there are dry, arid, and semi-arid climates, as well as absolute deserts (such as the 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 artefacts 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. 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.

Kenya is a presidential representative democratic republic, in which elected officials represent the people and the president is the head of state and government. The country is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, COMESA, International Criminal Court, as well as several other international organisations. It is also a major non-NATO ally of the United States. Kenya's economy is the largest in East and Central Africa, with Nairobi serving as a major regional commercial hub. With a per-capita Gross National Income of $2,110, the country is a lower-middle-income economy. Agriculture is the country's largest economic sector; tea and coffee are the sector's traditional cash crops, while fresh flowers are a fast-growing export. The service industry, particularly tourism, is also one of the country's major economic drivers. Kenya is a member of the East African Community trade bloc, though some international trade organisations categorise it as part of the Greater Horn of Africa. Africa is Kenya's largest export market, followed by the European Union. (Full article...)

Emblem of the Kenya Defence Forces

The Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) (Swahili: Majeshi ya Ulinzi ya Kenya, stylised as "KENYA ARMED FORCES" capitalised on its coat of arms) are the armed forces of the Republic of Kenya. They are made up of the Kenya Army, Kenya Navy, and Kenya Air Force. The current KDF was established, and its composition stipulated, in Article 241 of the 2010 Constitution of Kenya; it is governed by the KDF Act of 2012. Its main mission is the defence and protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Kenya, recruitment to the KDF is done on yearly basis. The President of Kenya is the commander-in-chief of the KDF, and the Chief of Defence Forces is the highest-ranking military officer, and the principal military adviser to the President of Kenya.

The Defence Forces, like many Kenyan government institutions, has been tainted by corruption. Because the military have been traditionally cloaked by the blanket of "state security", the corruption has been less in public view, and thus less subject to public scrutiny and notoriety. But in 2010, credible claims of corruption were made with regard to recruitment, and procurement of Armoured Personnel Carriers. The decision on the Northrop F-5 "Tiger" aircraft procurement have been publicly questioned. In 2015, credible allegations were made that the KDF is involved with sugar smuggling from southern Somalia into Kenya, to avoid import dues. (Full article...)

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Mount Kenya
Mount Kenya
The second tallest mountain in Africa, Mount Kenya, Kenya.

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Hot Air Balloon Safari in Maasai Mara
Hot Air Balloon Safari in Maasai Mara

Narok County is a county in Kenya. Narok County has a population of 850,920. Its capital and largest town is Narok. (Read more...)

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Ruins of the Great Mosque at Gedi

The Ruins of Gedi (Magofu wa mji wa kale wa Gedi in (Swahili) are a UNESCO World Heritage site near the Indian Ocean coast of eastern Kenya. The site is adjacent to the town of Gedi (also known as Gede) in Kilifi County and within the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest.

Gedi is one of many medieval Swahili coastal settlements that stretch from Barawa, Somalia, to the Zambezi River in Mozambique. There are 116 known Swahili sites stretching from southern Somalia to Vumba Kuu at the Kenya-Tanzania border. Since the rediscovery of the Gedi ruins by colonialists in the 1920s, Gedi has been one of the most intensely excavated and studied of those sites, along with Shanga, Manda, Ungwana, Kilwa, and the Comoros. (Full article...)

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Kiplagat at the 2013 World Championships

Edna Ngeringwony Kiplagat (born 15 November 1979) is a Kenyan professional long-distance runner. She was the 2011 and 2013 World Champion in the marathon. She established herself as an elite marathon runner with wins at the Los Angeles and New York City Marathons in 2010, and with four overall wins, she's tied for the third-most women's World Marathon Majors titles. She is also the oldest winner of a World Marathon Major, male or female, winning the 2021 Boston Marathon at age 41.

Her personal best for the distance is 2:19:50 hours, set at the London Marathon in 2012. At age 37, Kiplagat won the 2017 Boston Marathon in a time of 2:21:52 hours, and won the marathon silver medal at the IAAF World Championships in London. At age 39, she was second at the 2019 Boston Marathon and fourth in the event at the following World Championships. (Full article...)

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In the news

Wikinews Kenya portal
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19 August 2026 – 2026 Mount Ololokwe helicopter crash
Six passengers, including Ecuadorian intelligence head Michele Sensi-Contugi and his wife, and the pilot are killed in a helicopter crash on Mount Ololokwe in Samburu County, Kenya. (NBC News)
29 July 2026 – Somali Civil War
Five soldiers are killed in a shootout with Al-Shabaab gunmen in Mandera County, Kenya. (Garowe Online)
29 July 2026 –
Kenya Wildlife Service says preliminary tests indicated cyanide-contaminated tomatoes may have killed 15 elephants near Amboseli National Park over the past month, warning that livestock grazing in the area could also be exposed. (AFP via The Manila Times)
15 July 2026 – Cannabis in Kenya
Kenya's High Court rejects a Rastafarian petition seeking a religious exemption from cannabis laws, ruling that the group does not show the laws violate religious freedom. (AFP via NDTV)
10 July 2026 – 2026 Diamond League
Kenyan middle-distance runner Emmanuel Wanyonyi breaks the men's 1,000 metres ​world record in two minutes ‌and 11.83 seconds at the Herculis in Monaco. (Reuters)
30 June 2026 – Human rights in Kenya
According to witnesses, one person is killed and two others are injured when Kenyan police open fire during a protest in Mathare, Nairobi against reported abductions, amid concerns over security abuses. (Reuters)

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