Peoples and Languages

Kenya's population of 47.6 million (2019 census) belongs to more than 40 communities speaking over 60 languages. The largest are the Kikuyu, Luhya, Kalenjin, Luo and Kamba, which together make up more than half of the population. But no single group is a majority.

Kenya's peoples arrived over thousands of years, in overlapping waves shaped by climate, land and opportunity. The earliest were hunter-gatherers, ancestors of communities such as the Ogiek. Around 3,000 years ago, Cushitic-speaking herders moved in from the north. Later, Eastern Cushitic peoples such as the Somali and Borana spread across the north and east.

From around 2,000 years ago, Bantu-speaking farmers arrived from the west, part of one of the largest migrations in African history. They brought ironworking and settled agriculture. Their descendants include the Kikuyu, Kamba, Luhya, Meru, Kisii and Mijikenda.

Nilotic peoples came from the Nile Valley in several streams. Highland Nilotes, ancestors of the Kalenjin, settled the western highlands. Plains Nilotes such as the Maasai, Samburu and Turkana became pastoralists of the Rift Valley and north. The River-Lake Nilotes, the Luo, reached the shores of Lake Victoria from around the 1500s.

Identities were never fixed. Communities traded, intermarried and absorbed one another. The Kalenjin, for example, only adopted their shared name in the 1940s and 1950s, when a radio broadcaster's catchphrase 'kalenjin' ('I tell you') caught on. Colonial rule, however, classified people into fixed 'tribes' with separate reserves, which hardened these boundaries. Communities also kept their own origin stories: the Kikuyu, for example, trace their nine clans to the daughters of Gikuyu and Mumbi.

Language binds Kenya together. Kiswahili, the language of the coast, spread inland with trade and became the national language. The 2010 Constitution made Kiswahili and English official languages and recognised Kenyan Sign Language. Recognition has also grown: the Makonde became citizens in 2016, and Kenyan Asians were recognised as a Kenyan community in 2017.