Kenya is divided into 47 counties, not states. These are the country's only level of devolved government. They were created by the 2010 Constitution and took office after the general election of 4 March 2013. Each county has an elected governor and county assembly and sends one senator to the national Senate. Nairobi City County is both the capital and the most populous county, with 4,397,073 people in the 2019 census. Turkana in the north-west is the largest, at about 98,598 km², and Mombasa is the smallest, at 212.5 km². The 47 counties are not a new design: their borders follow the 46 districts that existed in 1992, plus Nairobi. Those districts in turn go back to colonial lines, and the rest of this article follows how that map was drawn.
1895–1920: Protectorate Provinces and a Coastal Strip Leased From Zanzibar
British administration in what is now Kenya began as the East Africa Protectorate, which was divided into provinces. The Northern Frontier was one of nine. Mombasa was the first seat of government. Nairobi was founded in 1898 as a depot on the Uganda Railway and replaced Mombasa as capital in 1907. On 23 July 1920 the interior was annexed as the Colony of Kenya. A 16-kilometre coastal strip, over which the Sultan of Zanzibar kept nominal sovereignty under an agreement of 14 December 1895, became the Protectorate of Kenya on 29 November 1920. Colony and Protectorate were run as one administrative unit, but the coast remained legally separate until 12 December 1963. On that date the Sultan's sovereignty ended at the same moment as British rule.
The northern boundary also moved during this period. Britain ceded the northern half of Jubaland to Italy in 1924–25 as a reward for Italy joining the Allies in the First World War. The southern half stayed British and was merged into the Northern Frontier District (NFD). Civil administration there was formally recognised in 1910, with headquarters at Moyale, and by the late 1920s the NFD covered nearly half of the colony. It was arid, it had an estimated population of only 65,136 in 1931, and settlers had little interest in it. Its old district stations at Marsabit, Wajir and Mandera are county capitals today.
Seven Regions, 40 Districts and Nairobi Under the 1963 Constitution
The independence settlement negotiated at the Lancaster House conferences was a compromise between two parties. The Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU), led by Ronald Ngala, wanted majimbo, the Swahili word for "regions": a federal system that would protect smaller communities from domination by the larger ones. The Kenya African National Union (KANU), led by Jomo Kenyatta, opposed it. Under the 1963 constitution Kenya was given seven semi-autonomous regions plus Nairobi: Coast, North Eastern, Eastern, Central, Rift Valley, Western and Nyanza.
Below the regions, the colonial authorities redrew the districts in 1962 and capped them at 40, plus the Nairobi Area. Each district elected one member of a new Senate, which gave 41 senators. Several of the 1963 headquarters later took new names: Fort Hall became Murang'a, Thomson's Falls became Nyahururu, and Galole, the Tana River headquarters, reverted to its earlier name of Hola in 1971. The federal structure did not last. The Senate was abolished in 1966 and merged with the House of Representatives to form a single National Assembly, the regions were renamed provinces, and constitutional amendments had made Kenya a unitary state again by 1970.
1963: The Northern Frontier District Shared Between Three Regions
The NFD was abolished in 1963 and divided among three of the new regions. Marsabit and Isiolo districts went to Eastern, Turkana District went to Rift Valley, and Wajir, Mandera and Garissa formed a new North Eastern Region of about 127,000 km². During the negotiations, a British commission reported that the inhabitants of five of the NFD's six administrative areas, a largely Somali region, favoured union with the newly independent Somali Republic. Britain nevertheless handed the whole area to the incoming Kenyan government. North Eastern was the only region drawn almost entirely from the old frontier district, and its capital was Garissa. When the provinces were abolished in 2013 its three districts became Garissa, Wajir and Mandera counties, the first three counties after the Coast in the official numbering (007 to 009).
Districts Multiply: From 46 in 1992 to 254 by 2009
For the next four decades the map changed mostly at district level. Kisii District was split in 1989 to create Nyamira. Vihiga was split off from Kakamega in 1990. In 1992 Meru District was divided into four, and two of the pieces, Meru South (also called Nithi) and Tharaka, were combined as Tharaka-Nithi. By 1992 the three Nyanza districts of 1963 (Central Nyanza, South Nyanza and Kisii) had become six: Homa Bay, Kisii, Kisumu, Migori, Nyamira and Siaya. Makueni in Eastern and Bomet in the Rift Valley had also appeared, and the 1963 Thika District was no longer on the list. The total stood at 46 districts plus Nairobi. That 1992 list is the one that matters today.
After that, new districts were created at an accelerating rate. There were already 57 when Mwai Kibaki took office in 2003. In January 2007 the government carved 37 new districts out of 14 existing ones, and by July 2009 there were 254. Critics described the splits as a waste of money and a populist bid to please local residents, while the government said they brought services closer to people. In 2009 the High Court ruled that every district created after 1992 had been established unlawfully, with the judge saying they were made "in complete disregard of the law". The extra districts kept operating, but in law Kenya was back to 46 districts plus Nairobi.
4 August 2010: The Referendum That Turned 47 Districts Into Counties
The push for a new constitution grew out of the violence after the disputed 2007 election. The peace deal that ended the 2007–2008 crisis required the constitutional question to be reopened. Parliament passed a draft on 1 April 2010, and voters approved it in a referendum on 4 August 2010, with 68.6% voting yes. The constitution came into force on 27 August 2010. Its First Schedule names the 47 counties, whose official codes run from Mombasa (001) to Nairobi (047). Their boundaries are those of the 46 legal districts of 1992 plus the capital. The eight provinces, which dated from the regions of 1963, were to be phased out, and they were dissolved when the counties took office in 2013. The national government now posts a county commissioner to each county, and the districts that existed in 2013 were reorganised as sub-counties led by deputy commissioners. There were 314 sub-counties in 2023.
Each county's former province shows how unevenly the old units were divided:
| Former province | Counties | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Rift Valley | 14 | Turkana, Nakuru, Uasin Gishu, Kajiado |
| Eastern | 8 | Marsabit, Meru, Machakos, Kitui |
| Coast | 6 | Mombasa, Kilifi, Tana River, Lamu |
| Nyanza | 6 | Kisumu, Kisii, Homa Bay, Migori |
| Central | 5 | Kiambu, Nyeri, Murang'a, Nyandarua |
| Western | 4 | Kakamega, Bungoma, Busia, Vihiga |
| North Eastern | 3 | Garissa, Wajir, Mandera |
| Nairobi | 1 | Nairobi City |
Rift Valley Province had a capital at Nakuru, covered 182,505 km² and had more than 10 million people in 2009. It was split into 14 counties, more than any other province.
March 2013: Governors, Senators and County Assemblies Take Office
The counties began working after the general election of 4 March 2013, which was the first to elect governors, senators and county assembly members. It was also the first general election run by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission. The Senate returned after 47 years without one, with one elected senator per county. A woman representative is elected from each county to the National Assembly, which guarantees at least 47 women MPs. The Fourth Schedule of the constitution lists what counties are responsible for: county health facilities and ambulances, county roads and public transport, markets and trade licences, pre-primary education and village polytechnics, and county planning, among other functions. County assemblies are elected from single-member wards.
Some county capitals did not follow the old district headquarters. Tharaka-Nithi's government sits at Kathwana rather than Chuka. Laikipia's at Rumuruti rather than Nanyuki, Nyandarua's at Ol Kalou, Makueni's at Wote and Vihiga's at Mbale.
Turkana, Mombasa, Nairobi and Mandera: Extremes of the 2019 Census
The 47 counties cover a total of about 581,309 km², and the 2019 census counted 47,564,296 people in them. The differences between counties are large:
- Largest: Turkana, with its capital at Lodwar, covers 98,597.8 km², about one-sixth of the country, and had 1,504,976 people. Marsabit (66,923 km²) and Wajir (55,841 km²) come next, and both were carved from the old NFD.
- Smallest: Mombasa covers 212.5 km² but had 1,208,333 people. Vihiga (531 km²) and Nairobi (695 km²) are the next smallest.
- Most populous: Nairobi had 4,397,073 people, followed by Kiambu with 2,417,735 and Nakuru with 2,162,202.
- Least populous: Lamu, the coastal archipelago county, had 143,920 people.
Mandera is the one county whose census figure fell. It went from 1,025,756 in 2009 to 867,457 in 2019. The 2009 results for North Eastern Province had been annulled by Planning Minister Wycliffe Oparanya, who cited inconsistencies in birth and death rates, and on 21 March 2016 the Court of Appeal declared the disputed results valid again. The 2019 figure is therefore lower than a 2009 count that was itself in dispute until 2016.
For how the counties fit alongside the presidency and Parliament, see our guide to the government of Kenya. The largest cities in Kenya covers the towns behind these county figures, and the story of the capital itself is in Nairobi, Kenya's capital.