Eldama Ravine is a town in
Baringo County
Baringo County is one of the 47 counties in Kenya. It is located in the former Rift Valley Province. Its headquarters and largest town is Kabarnet. The county is home to Lake Baringo.
Geographical location
Baringo bounded by Turkana County and ...
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Kenya
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, a few miles north of the equator, geographical coordinates 0° 30' 0" North, 35° 43' 0" East. It was established as an administrative point by British colonialists and later served as a transit route for lumber harvested from surrounding forests.
It was previously the headquarters of the former Koibatek District and Eldama Ravine Constituency.
It has a population of 45,799 (2009 census). It is largely an agricultural trade point producing world popular commercial
rose
A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...
flowers. It is fairly cosmopolitan home to more than half of Kenya's ethnic tribes.
Naming
The Eldama Ravine (E/Ravine) was first known as Shimoni due to the presence of a narrow ravine through which the Eldama Ravine River flows. Eldama, the non-English part of the name, is derived from the Maasai word ‘eldama’, which means narrow gorge. It had two areas known as lembus soi( Mogotio constituency) and lembus mosop(eldama ravine constituency)
The town was established by Nubians who worked as soldiers and transporters for the British IBEA in 1887, white settlers and the native lembus community. It became the headquarters of the Naivasha province, then under the
Uganda Protectorate
The Protectorate of Uganda was a protectorate of the British Empire from 1894 to 1962. In 1893 the Imperial British East Africa Company transferred its administration rights of territory consisting mainly of the Kingdom of Buganda to the Brit ...
.
[MORRIS KIRUGA. Daily Nation. How local dialects influenced naming of west Kenya towns. 23 July 201]
References
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Populated places in Baringo County