Kenya, Africa

Country Overview

Location: Eastern Africa, bordering the Indian Ocean, between Somalia and Tanzania  

Population: 41,070,934

Religion: 45% Protestants, 33% Indigenous Beliefs, 2% Others

Language: English and Kiswahili (official), indigenous languages

Birth Rate: 33.54 births/1,000 population

Death Rate: 8.93 deaths/1,000 population

Ethnic Groups: 22% Kikuyu, 13% Luo, 14% Luhya, 12% Kalenjin, 11% Kamba, 6% Kissii, 6% Meru, 15% other African, 1% non-African

Literary Rate: 85% total population, 90.6% male, 79.7% female

Education Expenditures: 7% GDP

Government Type: Republic

Unemployment Rate: 40%

Population below poverty line: 50%

Legal System: Based on Kenyan statutory law, Kenyan and English common law, tribal law, and Islamic law; judicial review in High Court; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction with reservations; constitutional amendment of 1982 making Kenya a de jure one-party state repealed in 1991.

Suffrage: 18 years of age, universal 

Industries: Small-scale consumer goods, agricultural products, horticulture, oil refining; aluminum, steel, lead; cement, commercial ship repair, and tourism. 

Industrial production: 4% growth rate

Communication: 664,100 telephone main lines in use, 19.365 million mobile cellular, 47,676 internet hosts, and 3.996 million internet users.

Military Branches: Kenya Armed Forces-Kenya Navy and Kenya Air Force. The ages and obligations are 18-26 years of age for voluntary service,under 18 with parental consent, with a 9 year obligation; applicants must be Kenyan citizens and provide a national identity card and a school-leaving certificate.

Transnational Issues: Served as an important mediator in brokering Sudan’s north-south separation in February 2005

-Provides shelter to almost a quarter of a million refugees, including Ugandans who flee across the border periodically to seek protection from Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels.

-Works hard to prevent the clan and militia fighting in Somalia from spreading across the border, which has long been open to nomadic pastoralists; the boundary that separates Kenya’s and Sudan’s sovereignty is unclear in the “Ilemi Triangle”, 

which Kenya has administered since colonial times. 

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ke.html