Kiambu County
Kiambu County Profile
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It borders Nairobi and Kajiado Counties to the South, Machakos to the East, Murang‘a to the North and North East, Nyandarua to the North West, and Nakuru to the West. It lies between latitudes 00 25‘and 10 20‘South of the Equator and Longitude 36,31‘S and 37,15‘E.
Demographic details
The 2009 Population and Housing Census indicate that the county had an urban population of 936,411 in 2009 and in 2012 was projected to be 1,018,773. Urban population is expected to reach 1,108,380 in 2015 and 1,172,453 by the end of 2017.
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The county urban population distribution per urban centres shows that Ruiru and Kikuyu towns have the highest number of people living in urban areas, followed by Thika and Karuri towns respectively. This high population is attributed to the proximity of the county to Nairobi as most of the people work in Nairobi and reside in the county.
About Kiambu County
Kiambu County is divided into twelve (12) sub-counties: Limuru, Kikuyu, Kabete, Lari, Gatundu South, Gatundu North, Githunguri, Kiambu, Kiambaa, Ruiru, Juja and Thika Town. These are further divided into 60 wards.
Ruiru Constituency has the highest number of wards with 8 wards, while the rest of the constituencies have five each with the exemption of Kiambu, Gatundu South and Gatundu North which have four wards each.
Road and Rail Network
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Kiambu has a total of 2,033.8 km of roads of bitumen standards, 1,480.2 km of gravel surface and 430.1 km of earth surface. There has been a great improvement, for example, the Thika-Nairobi highway.
It has a total of 131 km of railway line and four railway stations in Ruiru, Thika, Kikuyu and Limuru towns. The rail is not fully utilized in the county and only passenger trains operate in the morning and evenings between the City of Nairobi and the four stations.
Financial Institutions
Kiambu enjoys the services of over 17 financial institutions – especially banks. In addition, there are eight microfinance institutions, one building society, four village banks and 12 insurance companies.
Education Institutions
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The county has numerous education institutions which are well distributed within the county. It has about 1,595 ECD centres out of which 1,063 are private and 532 are public. The county has 934 primary schools which are equally distributed between the private and the public where each category has 467 schools. There are 303 secondary schools out of which 227 are public and 76 are Private.
The County has one public University, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology located in Juja Constituency and two satellite campuses namely University of Nairobi, Kikuyu campus in Kikuyu sub county and Kenyatta University , Ruiru campus in Ruiru Sub County.
There are six private universities which include Gretsa University, Mount Kenya University, St. Paul‘s University, Kiriri Women‘s Science and Technology University and Presbyterian University of East Africa, Zetech University in Ruiru and a number of tertiary colleges.
The county has some of the best national secondary schools such as Alliance Boys High School, Alliance Girls School, Loreto Girls High School, Limuru Girls High School, Mary Hill Girls and Mang’u High School.
Energy Access
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The main source of cooking energy in the county is firewood which accounts for about 47.3 percent, while paraffin is the major source of lighting fuel. This poses a great challenge to the realization of 10 percent forest cover within the county.
Connection to the national grid is good with 98 percent of all trading centres connected and only 4 percent of public institutions currently not connected.
However, connection to individual homes is low and there is need for up-scaling of the rural electrification programme.
Kiambu County is endowed with a number of big rivers which can be exploited for power generation.
Markets and Urban Centres
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The county has a total of 2,517 trading centres with 6,634 registered retail traders and 750 registered wholesale traders. There are also a number of urban centres with the largest being Thika Town which is one of the largest industrial towns in the country.
Other urban centres include Kiambu in Kiambu Sub County, Karuri in Kiambaa sub county, Kikuyu in Kikuyu sub county, Limuru in Limuru Sub County Gatundu in Gatundu South Sub County and Ruiru in Ruiru Sub County.
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