Background
Founding president and liberation struggle icon Jomo Kenyatta led Kenya from independence until his death in 1978, when President Daniel Toroitich arap Moi took power in a constitutional succession. The country was a de facto one-party state from 1969 until 1982 when the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) made itself the sole legal party in Kenya. MOI acceded to internal and external pressure for political liberalization in late 1991. The ethnically fractured opposition failed to dislodge KANU from power in elections in 1992 and 1997, which were marred by violence and fraud, but are viewed as having generally reflected the will of the Kenyan people. President Moi stepped down in December of 2002 following fair and peaceful elections. Mwai Kibaki, running as the candidate of the multiethnic, united opposition group, the National Rainbow Coalition, defeated KANU candidate Uhuru Kenyatta and assumed the presidency following a campaign centered on an anticorruption platform.

Location
Eastern Africa, bordering the Indian Ocean, between Somalia and Tanzania

Area
Total: 582,650 sq km
Land: 569,250 sq km
Water: 13,400 sq km

Land boundaries
Total: 3,477 km
Border countries: Ethiopia 861 km, Somalia 682 km, Sudan 232 km, Tanzania 769 km, Uganda 933 km

Coastline
536 km

Climate
Varies from tropical along coast to arid in interior

Elevation extremes
Lowest point: Indian Ocean 0 m
Highest point: Mount Kenya 5,199 m

Time
GMT/UTC +3 all year round with an almost constant 12 hours of daylight. Sun-up and sundown at around 6.30 and 18.45 daily

Natural Resources
Gold, limestone, soda ash, salt, rubies, fluorspar, garnets, wildlife, hydropower

Tourism
Biggest contributor with more than $200m a year to Kentas economy. More than 500,000 tourists visit annually. Tourism provides 500,000 direct and indirect jobs for Kenyans

Rivers and Lakes
The Athi and he Tana are Kenyas chief rivers, flowing from the highlands to the Indian Ocean. Lake Turkana Covers 6,405 square kilometers in the far north while Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake at 69,484 sq km, lies at the western end of Kenya

Agriculture
Divided between cash and subsistence crops. Cash crops include: tea, coffee and a wide variety of subsistence crops. Employs 80% of population and contributes 25% to GDP

Manufacturing
Chief products include: cement, chemicals, household utensils, light machinery, motor vehicles, paper and paper products, and textiles. Food processing is a major industry and a refinery at Mombasa processes oil from other countries.

Environmental issues
Water pollution from urban and industrial wastes; degradation of water quality from increased use of pesticides and fertilizers; water hyacinth infestation in Lake Victoria; deforestation; soil erosion; desertification; poaching

Historical sites
Kenya has more than 400 historical sites ranging from prehistoric fossils and petrified forests to 14th Century slave trading settlements, Islamic ruins and 16th Century Portuguese forts

Population
32,021,856
Note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2004 est.)

Age Structure
0-14 years: 40.6% (male 6,575,409; female 6,430,218)
15-64 years: 56.5% (male 9,126,847; female 8,962,905)
65 years and over: 2.9% (male 399,050; female 527,427) (2004 est.)

Population Growth Rate
1.14% (2004 est.)

Birth rate
27.82 births/1,000 population (2004 est.)

Ethnic Groups
Kikuyu 22%, Luhya 14%, Luo 13%, Kalenjin 12%, Kamba 11%, Kisii 6%, Meru 6%, other African 15%, non-African (Asian, European, and Arab) 1%

Languages
English (official), Kiswahili (official), numerous indigenous languages

Media
Four daily English language newspapers, one daily Kiswahili newspaper, seven local television stations and 19 local and two foreign radio stations.

Government Type
Republic

Capital
Nairobi

Administrative Divisions
7 provinces and 1 area*; Central, Coast, Eastern, Nairobi Area*, North Eastern, Nyanza, Rift Valley, Western

Economy Overview
The regional hub for trade and finance in East Africa, Kenya has been hampered by corruption, notably in the judicial system, and by reliance upon several primary goods whose prices have remained low. In 1997, the IMF suspended Kenya's Enhanced Structural Adjustment Program due to the government's failure to maintain reforms and curb corruption. A severe drought from 1999 to 2000 compounded Kenya's problems, causing water and energy rationing and reducing agricultural output. As a result, GDP contracted by 0.2% in 2000. The IMF, which had resumed loans in 2000 to help Kenya through the drought, again halted lending in 2001 when the government failed to institute several anticorruption measures. Despite the return of strong rains in 2001, weak commodity prices, endemic corruption, and low investment limited Kenya's economic growth to 1.2%. Growth lagged at 1.1% in 2002 because of erratic rains, low investor confidence, meager donor support, and political infighting up to the elections. In the key 27 December 2002 elections, Daniel Arap MOI's 24-year-old reign ended, and a new opposition government took on the formidable economic problems facing the nation. In 2003, progress was made in rooting out corruption, and encouraging donor support, with GDP growth edging up to 1.7%.

Imports
Industrial Machinery, iron and steel, and petroleum

Exports
Coffee, tea, flowers, petroleum products, cement, meat, pineapples and sisal.

Currency
The Kenya Shilling (Ksh) 1US$-Ksh 76 Euro-Kshs 92 (July 2005)

Current President
H.E. Hon. Mwai Kibaki.