Demographics & population — Kenya
Population size, age structure, migration, ethnicity, language, education, and health indicators.
Profile updated 2026-06-02
⚡ Demographics & population at a glance
Population size, age structure, migration, ethnicity, language, education, and health indicators. Key figure for Kenya: 58,246,378
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Population overview
- Population
58,246,378
- Population Growth Rate
2.06%
- Population Distribution
population heavily concentrated in the west along the shore of Lake Victoria; other areas of high density include the capital of Nairobi, and in the southeast along the Indian Ocean coast
- Urban Population
- urban population: 29.5%
- of total population rate of urbanization: 4.09% annual rate of change
- Population in Major Urban Areas
5.325 million NAIROBI (capital), 1.440 million Mombassa
- Population: Male/Female
- male: 29,091,800
- female: 29,154,578
Age & family
- Age Structure
- years: 35.8% (male 10,464,384/female 10,366,997) 15-64
- years: 60.9% (male 17,731,068/female 17,723,012) 65
- years and over: 3.4% (male 896,348/female 1,064,569)
- Median Age
- total: 21.2
- years male: 21.1
- years female: 21.4 years
- Birth Rate - births/1,000 population
26
- Death Rate - deaths/1,000 population
4.9
- Total Fertility Rate - children born/woman
3.16
- Gross reproduction rate
2
- Contraceptive Prevalance Rate - female 12-49
64.6%
- Contraceptive Prevalence Rate - female 12-49
64.6%
- Currently married women (ages 15-49)
56.8%
- Mean Age for Mother's First Birth (age 25-49)
20.3
- Mother's mean age at first birth
20.3
- Sex Ratio at Birth - male/female
- at birth: 1.02
- male(s)/female 0-14 years: 1.01
- male(s)/female 15-64 years: 1
- male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.84
- male(s)/female total population: 1 male(s)/female
Migration
- Net Migration Rate - migrant(s)/1,000 population
-0.2
- Demographic profile
Kenya has experienced dramatic population growth since the mid-20th century as a result of its high birth rate and its declining mortality rate.
Almost 40% of Kenyans are under the age of 15 as of 2020 because of sustained high fertility, early marriage and childbearing, and an unmet need for family planning.
Kenya’s persistent rapid population growth strains the labor market, social services, arable land, and natural resources.
Although Kenya in 1967 was the first Sub-Saharan country to launch a nationwide family planning program, progress in reducing the birth rate has largely stalled since the late 1990s, when the government decreased its support for family planning to focus on the HIV epidemic.
Government commitment and international technical support spurred Kenyan contraceptive use, decreasing the fertility rate (children per woman) from about 8 in the late 1970s to less than 5 children twenty years later, but it has plateaued at about 3 children as of 2022.
Kenya is a source of emigrants and a host country for refugees.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Kenyans pursued higher education in the UK because of colonial ties, but as British immigration rules tightened, the US, the then Soviet Union, and Canada became attractive study destinations.
Kenya’s stagnant economy and political problems during the 1980s and 1990s led to an outpouring of Kenyan students and professionals seeking permanent opportunities in the West and southern Africa.
Nevertheless, Kenya’s relative stability since its independence in 1963 has attracted hundreds of thousands of refugees escaping violent conflicts in neighboring countries; Kenya was sheltering nearly 280,000 Somali refugees as of 2022.
Ethnicity & language
- Ethnic Groups
Kikuyu 17.1%, Luhya 14.3%, Kalenjin 13.4%, Luo 10.7%, Kamba 9.8%, Somali 5.8%, Kisii 5.7%, Mijikenda 5.2%, Meru 4.2%, Maasai 2.5%, Turkana 2.1%, non-Kenyan 1%, other 8.2%
- Language Note
English (official), Kiswahili (official), numerous indigenous languages
- Nationality Noun
- Kenyan(s) adjective: Kenyan
Education
- Literacy - total population
82.6%
- Literacy - male
85.5%
- Literacy - female
79.8%
- Literacy Definition
age 15 and over can read and write
- Education Expenditures - percent of GDP
4.8%
Health & living conditions
- Life Expectancy at Birth
- total population: 70.4
- years male: 68.6
- years female: 72.2 years
- Infant Mortality Rate
- total: 26.1 deaths/1,000
- live births male: 29 deaths/1,000
- live births female: 23.1 deaths/1,000 live births
- Infant Mortality Rate - total deaths/1,000 live births
- total: 26.1 deaths/1,000
- live births male: 29 deaths/1,000
- live births female: 23.1 deaths/1,000 live births
- Maternal Mortality Rate - deaths/100,000 live births
530
- Physicians Density - physicians/1,000 population
.16
- Hospital Bed Density - beds/1,000 population
1.4
- Health Expenditures - percent of GDP
4.3%
- Major Infectious Diseases - degree of risk
- very high food or waterborne diseases: bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A,
- and typhoid fever vectorborne diseases: malaria, dengue fever, Rift Valley fever,
- rabies note: on 31 August 2023, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a Travel Alert for polio in Asia; Israel is currently considered a high risk to travelers for circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPV); vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV) and that has changed over time and behaves more like the wild or naturally occurring virus; this means it can be spread more easily to people who are unvaccinated against polio and who come in contact with the stool or respiratory secretions, such as from a sneeze, of an “infected” person who received oral polio vaccine; the CDC recommends that before any international travel, anyone unvaccinated, incompletely vaccinated, or with an unknown polio vaccination status should complete the routine polio vaccine series; before travel to any high-risk destination, the CDC recommends that adults who previously completed the full, routine polio vaccine series receive a single, lifetime booster dose of polio vaccine
- Obesity - adult prevalence rate
7.1%
- Tobacco Use
- total: 11.1%
- male: 19.5%
- female: 2.7%
- Alcohol consumption per capita
- total: 1.68
- liters of pure alcohol beer: 0.81
- liters of pure alcohol wine: 0.04
- liters of pure alcohol spirits: 0.81
- liters of pure alcohol other alcohols: 0.03 liters of pure alcohol
- Drinking Water Source - percent of urban population improved
- urban: 91.3%
- of population rural: 63.3%
- of population total: 71.2%
- urban: 8.7%
- of population rural: 36.7%
- of population total: 28.8% of population
- Sanitation Facility Access - percent of urban population improved
- urban: 84%
- of population rural: 48.1%
- of population total: 58.2%
- urban: 16%
- of population rural: 51.9%
- of population total: 41.8% of population
- Underweight - percent of children under five years
10.1%