According to the 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census results presented to President Uhuru Kenyatta today at State House Nairobi, the total population enumerated during the census exercise conducted in August this year was 47,564,296 persons.
The results indicate that the female population which stands at 24,014,716 accounts for 50.5 percent of the total population while the male population is 23,548,056 persons.
The 2019 census report, presented to the Head of State by Director General of the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) Zachary Mwangi shows that Nairobi is the most populous county in the country with a population of 4.4 million people followed by Kiambu (2.4), Nakuru (2.16), Kakamega (1.87) and Bungoma (1.67).
The least populous counties are Lamu(143,920), Isiolo (268,002), Samburu (310,3217), Tana River (315,943) and Taita Taveta (340,671).
Speaking when he officially launched the census report, President Kenyatta said the findings will guide successful planning and implementation of government development initiatives, including the Big Four Agenda programmes.
The President asked KNBS to release other census reports as scheduled and directed all arms of government to make use of the results in their planning processes.
“These results now provide us with a unique opportunity to realign our development strategies, policies and programmes.
“I therefore direct all Ministries, Departments and Agencies to utilise these results,” the Head of State instructed as he urged other arms of government including counties to utilise the results in their planning processes.
In addition to being the first census under the 2010 constitution, it was also the first such exercise in the history of Kenya where technology was fully deployed.
“I am proud to note that the mobile devices used in the census were assembled by our local universities and data capture software was internally developed by the Bureau (KNBS),” the President said of the national exercise that was fully funded by the government.
Cabinet Secretaries Fred Matiang’i (Interior), Joe Mucheru (ICT) and Ukur Yattani (National Treasury) were among several senior government officials at this year’s census results launch ceremony.
