KNBS Director-General Zachary Mwangi and Labour CS Ukur Yattani presented the preliminary report to President Uhuru Kenyatta at State House.
President Kenyatta thanked KNBS for the work and noted the country had made history by becoming the first African country release census results after just two months of the exercise.
“I unreservedly thank Kenyans and all those who were within the borders of our country on the night of 24/25th August 2019 and fully participated in the exercise,” President Kenyatta said in a statement sent to newsrooms.
“I recognise and appreciate the patriotic sacrifice by the young men and women together with the village elders who worked as census officials visiting every home in their assigned jurisdictions and staying late into the night to ensure complete coverage of the exercise. To you all, I say thank you.”
Kenya's population has grown by 9.9 million people over the last ten years to reach 47.6 million this year, according to the 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census results.
The results indicate that Kenya’s female population currently stands at 24,014,716 and accounts for 50.5 percent of the total population while the male population is 23,548,056 persons.
The 2019 census report, 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).
Early this year, (KNBS) released its first-ever comprehensive study of counties’ wealth, providing a measure of how much each region contributes to the national cake as at the end of 2017.
The report titled Gross County Product (GCP) 2019 was funded by the World Bank and tracks the monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced in each of the 47 counties, with a view to providing a picture of the economic structure and relative size of the economy for each county.
With the exception of Nairobi city and Mombasa counties, agriculture remains a key driver of growth in most counties. Agriculture helped counties such as Nakuru, Kiambu, Meru, Bungoma, Kakamega and Nyeri to record robust growth powered by agriculture and the services sectors.
Industrial activities (manufacturing activities in particular) are mainly concentrated in urban counties, namely: Nairobi, Kiambu, Mombasa, Machakos, Kisumu, Nakuru, and Kajiado.
Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was worth $87.91 billion as of 2018. The GDP value of Kenya represents 0.14 percent of the world economy.
Here are the top 10 most populous counties and what each contributes to the national GDP.
Nairobi (4,397,073) - 21.7 percent to the overall GDP
Kiambu (2,417,735) - 5.5 percent
Nakuru (2,162,202) - 6.1 percent
Kakamega (1,867,579) - 2.4 percent
Bungoma (1,670,570) - 2.3 percent
Meru (1.545,714) - 2.9 percent
Kilifi (1,453,787) - 1.6 percent
Machakos (1,421,932) - 3.2 percent
Kisii (1,266,860) - 2.1 percent
Mombasa (1,208,333) - 4.7 percent
