With an estimated population of more than Kenya's capital and largest city is Nairobi , while its oldest and second-largest city, is the major port city of Mombasa , situated on Mombasa Island in the Indian Ocean and the surrounding mainland. Mombasa was the capital of the British East Africa Protectorate , [ 13 ] which included most of what is now Kenya and southwestern Somalia, from to Other important cities include Kisumu and Nakuru.
Kenya is bordered by South Sudan to the northwest, Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the east, Uganda to the west, Tanzania to the south, and the Indian Ocean to the southeast. Kenya's geography , climate and population vary widely, ranging from cold snow-capped mountaintops Batian, Nelion and Point Lenana on Mount Kenya with vast surrounding forests, wildlife and fertile agricultural regions to temperate climates in western and rift valley counties and further on to dry less fertile arid and semi-arid areas and absolute deserts Chalbi Desert and Nyiri Desert.
Kenya's earliest inhabitants were hunter-gatherers , like the present-day Hadza people. Nilotic -speaking pastoralists ancestral to Kenya's Nilotic speakers began migrating from present-day South Sudan into Kenya around BC. European contact began in AD with the Portuguese Empire , and effective colonisation of Kenya began in the 19th century during the European exploration of Africa.
Modern-day Kenya emerged from a protectorate established by the British Empire in and the subsequent Kenya Colony , which began in Numerous disputes between the UK and the colony led to the Mau Mau revolution , which began in , and the declaration of independence in After independence, Kenya remained a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The current constitution was adopted in and replaced the independence constitution.
Kenya is a presidential representative democratic republic, in which elected officials represent the people and the president is the head of state and government. With a GNI of 1,, [ 19 ] Kenya is a lower-middle-income economy. Kenya's economy is the second largest in eastern and central Africa, after Ethiopia, with Nairobi serving as a major regional commercial hub. The service industry is also a major economic driver, particularly tourism. Kenya is a member of the East African Community trade bloc, [ 21 ] [ 22 ] though some international trade organisations categorise it as part of the Greater Horn of Africa.
