Kenya’s population has grown about 2½-fold since 1990, while its urban share has risen from roughly one in five people to one in three. The latest available year in the World Bank series is 2025. (data.worldbank.org)
Population growth
- 22.9 million in 1990 → 57.5 million in 2025: an increase of 34.6 million people, or 151%.
- That is equivalent to 2.7% average annual growth over 35 years.
- Growth has slowed: between 2024 and 2025, the population increased by about 1.1 million, or 1.95%. These calculations use the World Bank population series shown in the chart. (data.worldbank.org)
How fast is it urbanising?
- The urban share increased from 18.2% in 1990 to 32.2% in 2025—a gain of 14.0 percentage points, averaging 0.40 percentage points a year.
- More recently, it rose from 31.2% in 2020 to 32.2% in 2025: about 0.20 percentage points a year. In this series, recent urbanisation is therefore slower than the long-run average. (data.worldbank.org)
- Multiplying population by urban share gives approximately 4.2 million urban residents in 1990 versus 18.5 million in 2025—more than a fourfold increase. This illustrates the distinction between a growing urban population and a rising urban share. (data.worldbank.org)
Bottom line: Kenya remains predominantly rural by this measure, but the number of urban residents has grown much faster than the total population. (data.worldbank.org)
Definition caveat: “Urban” follows national statistical definitions, not a uniform city-boundary definition. These are estimated annual series; changes should not be interpreted solely as rural-to-urban migration, since classification changes and natural population growth also matter. (databank.worldbank.org)