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Kenya’s historical geography looks at Kenya’s spatial patterns in terms of people’s movements and settlements in various climatic locations. We examine how climate and vegetation affected human settlements.
Historical geography is an explanation of the location of various tribes in the Kenyan environment and then interrelations with other communities.
Geographically Kenya is bordered in the Indian ocean in the S. East, Somalia in the East, Ethiopia on the north, Sudan on the north west, Uganda on the west and Tanzania on the south.
The name Kenya was derived from Mt. Kenya (Kerenyaga), the second highest mountain in Africa, located in the S. Central part of the country at the equator.
Kenya’s physical geography and history has been influenced by the lowlands located along the Indian Ocean along the Indian Ocean, the Kenya highlands, the great rift valley and the broad uplands of the Lake Victoria basin in the west.
All these factors affected the historical migration of the Bantu, Nilotes, Cushites, Arabs and Europeans who occupy Kenya today.
Kenya’s population is divided by languages and culture into more than 40 different ethnic groups. The largest and most active politically include the Kikuyu (20%) a Bantu speaking peoples. Other important Bantu peoples include Kamba (11%), Luhyia (14%) and Kisii.
The Luo, of Nilotic origin who speak a non-Bantu language constitute about 14% of the population. The second largest non-Bantu ethnic group comprise several clans of the Nilotic origin named the Kalenjin a name indicating their common identity and cultural origins.
The Arabs and Swahili are a people of mixed Arab and black African origin are found on the Coastal areas while the Somali and Galla are located in the northern sections of the country. Several thousands of Europeans (British) and Asians live in Nairobi and other cities.
Historically the official language was English up to 1974, when Kiswahili took over (New Constitution).
Demographically, the population density for Kenya shows that 4/5 of the country is occupied by less than 15% of the population and the remaining 1/5 the remaining is occupied by more than 85% of the total population. The most densely populated areas are the Kenya highlands and the Lake Victoria basin with the densities of 400 per km2.
jerop5614 answered the question on December 21, 2018 at 11:29
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