Demographics of Kenya


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.
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. Preliminary results of the census were published in 2010.
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. 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, resulting in an estimate of 46.5 million in 2016. As of 2024 Kenya has 770,255 refugees and asylum seekers.

Population

According to, the total population was in 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. Worldometers estimates the total population at 48,466,928 inhabitants, a 29th global rank.
Population by Sex and Age Group :
Age groupMaleFemaleTotal%
Total19 192 45819 417 63938 610 097100
0–43 000 4392 938 8675 939 30615.38
5–92 832 6692 765 0475 597 71614.50
10–142 565 3132 469 5425 034 85513.04
15–192 123 6532 045 8904 169 54310.80
20–241 754 1052 020 9983 775 1039.78
25–291 529 1161 672 1103 201 2268.29
30–341 257 0351 262 4712 519 5066.53
35–391 004 3611 004 2712 008 6325.20
40–44743 594732 5751 476 1693.82
45–49635 276637 4691 272 7453.30
50–54478 346477 860956 2062.48
55–59359 466352 497711 9531.84
60–64295 197298 581593 7781.54
65-69183 151207 612390 7631.01
70-74160 301179 000339 3010.88
75-7999 833118 675218 5080.57
80+159 125224 576383 7010.99
Age groupMaleFemaleTotalPercent
0–148 398 4218 173 45616 571 87742.92
15–6410 191 62710 514 32020 705 94753.63
65+602 410729 8631 332 2733.45
Unknown11 4789 60821 0860.05

Population by Sex and Age Group :
Age groupMaleFemaleTotal%
Total23 544 37224 011 27047 557 157100
0–43 005 4962 985 4845 991 12812.60
5–93 116 1013 084 4456 200 71913.04
10–143 209 5443 136 1496 345 86413.34
15–192 686 4762 599 9055 286 53511.12
20–242 112 7772 335 0524 448 0379.35
25–291 839 2562 014 5463 853 9558.10
30–341 698 3541 871 6253 570 1337.51
35–391 347 9621 301 6242 649 6795.57
40–441 156 9321 101 8672 258 8614.75
45–49916 166869 7401 785 9573.76
50–54662 864645 4631 308 3712.75
55–59546 852571 0001 117 8782.35
60–64419 362450 447869 8371.83
65-69311 281346 756658 0521.38
70-74235 929278 507514 4531.08
75-79119 265163 799283 0710.60
80-8482 909120 944203 8560.43
85-8943 94869 635113 5870.24
90-9419 22535 86655 0950.12
95-999 76818 23328 0010.06
100+3 90510 18314 0880.03
Age groupMaleFemaleTotalPercent
0–149 331 1419 206 07818 537 71138.98
15–6413 387 00113 761 26927 149 24357.09
65+826 2301 043 9231 870 2033.93

Population by province in 2019 census

Province2019
Kenya 47,564,296
Nairobi 4,397,073
Central5,482,239
Coast4,329,474
Eastern6,821,049
North Eastern2,490,073
Nyanza6,269,579
Rift Valley12,752,966
Western5,021,843

UN population projections

Numbers are in thousands. UN medium variant projections
  • 2015 46,332
  • 2020 52,563
  • 2025 59,054
  • 2030 65,928
  • 2035 73,257
  • 2040 80,975
  • 2045 88,907
  • 2050 96,887

Vital statistics

United Nations estimates

Registration of vital events is in Kenya not complete. The Population Department of the United Nations prepared the following estimates.

Demographic and Health Surveys

Total Fertility Rate and Crude Birth Rate :
Fertility data as of 2014 :
RegionTotal fertility ratePercentage of women age 15–49 currently pregnantMean number of children ever born to women age 40–49
Coast4.36.65.5
North Eastern6.412.07.1
Eastern3.44.64.7
Central2.84.83.7
Rift Valley4.57.05.5
Western4.76.76.1
Nyanza4.35.95.8
Nairobi2.76.83.1

Ethnic groups

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. People from Asian or European heritage living in Kenya are estimated at around 0.3% of the population.
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. 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, Luhya, Kalenjin, Luo, Kamba, Somalis, Kisii, Mijikenda, Meru, Maasai, and Turkana. Foreign-rooted populations included Asians, Europeans with Kenyan citizenship, 26,753 without, and Kenyan Arabs. 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.

Bantu peoples

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.
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.

Nilotic peoples

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. 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. Similar to the Bantu, some Nilotic systems of governance bear similarities with those of their Cushitic neighbors.

Cushitic people

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. Cushites are concentrated in the northernmost North Eastern Province, which borders Somalia.
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, and the first of the Cushitic-speaking peoples to migrate from their homeland in the Horn of Africa about 2,000 years ago. 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. There are no Southern Cushites left in Kenya..
  • The Eastern Cushites include the Oromo and the Somali. After the Northern Frontier District 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
An entrepreneurial community, they established themselves in the business sector, particularly in Eastleigh, Nairobi.

Indians

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. The majority of Kenyan Asians hail from the Gujarat and Punjab regions. 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.
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. According to the 2019 Census, Kenyan Asians number 47,555 people, while Asians without Kenyan citizenship number 42,972 individuals. In 2017, Kenyans of Asian Heritage were officially recognised as the 44th tribe of Kenya by President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Europeans

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, 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. 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.

Arabs

s 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. According to the 2019 Census, Kenyan Arabs number 59,021 people.

Languages

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. Peri-urban and rural dwellers are less multilingual, with many in rural areas speaking only their native languages.
According to Ethnologue, there are a total of 69 languages spoken in Kenya. Most belong to two broad language families: Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan, 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.

Religion

CIA World Factbook estimate: