Lamu County is a

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

located along the North Coast of the country and is one of the six Coastal Counties in Kenya. Its capital is the town of Lamu. It borders

Tana River County Tana River County is a county in the former Coast Province of Kenya. It is named after the Tana River, the longest river in Kenya. It has an area of and a population of 315,943 as of the 2019 census. The county borders Kitui County to the w ...

to the southwest,

Garissa County Garissa County is an administrative county in Kenya. Its capital and largest urban area is Garissa. The county had a population of 841,353 at the 2019 Census, and a land area of about .2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census, Volume 2. Demog ...

to the north,

Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...

to the northeast, and the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...

to the South. The county has a land surface of , including the mainland and over 65 islands that form the

Lamu Archipelago The Lamu Archipelago is located in the Indian Ocean close to the northern coast of Kenya, to which it belongs. The islands lie between the towns of Lamu and Kiunga, near the Coast Province. It is a part of Lamu District. The largest of the isl ...

. The total length of the coastline is , while the land water mass area stands at . As of the 2019

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

, Lamu County had a population of 143,920, making it the least populated county in Kenya.

Demographics

The county is made of a cosmopolitan population composed of communities such as Boni, Ormas, Swahilis,

Arabs The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Wester ...

, Koreni, Kikuyu, and other migrant communities from the rest of the country. The county has a total population of 143,920 of which 76,103 are males 67,813 females and 4 intersex persons. There are 37,963 households with an average household size of 3.7 persons per household and a population density of 23 people per square kilometer. The LAPSSET project is expected to attract a huge migrant population estimated to be over one million. This will certainly overstretch the county's social services necessitating commensurate development planning for adequate service provision.

Religion

Administrative and political units

Administrative units

The county has 2 constituencies: Lamu West and Lamu East. These two also consist of the two districts referred to as the sub-counties in Lamu County. Lamu West has Amu Mkomani, Shela, Hindi,

Mkunumbi Mkunumbi is a historic Swahili settlement in Kenya's Coast Province The Coast Province ( sw, Mkoa wa Pwani) of Kenya, along the Indian Ocean, was one of Kenya's eight provinces. It comprises the Indian Ocean coastal strip with the capital city ...

, Hongwe, Bahari and Witu Divisions while Lamu East has

Faza Faza is a small town on the North coast on Pate Island, within the Lamu Archipelago in Kenya's former Coast Province. Faza was known by the name of Ampaza by the PortugueseSvat Soucek, « The Portuguese and the Turks in the Persian gulf » in '' ...

, Basuba and Kiunga divisions. There are 10 wards, 23 locations, and 38 sub-locations in the county.

Political units

There are two constituencies and ten county assembly wards.

= Constituencies

= * MP – Hon. Muthama, Stanley Muiruri Lamu West Constituency * MP – Hon.Ruweida Mohammed Obo

Lamu East Constituency Lamu East Constituency is an Constituencies of Kenya, electoral constituency in Kenya. It is one of two constituencies in Lamu County. The constituency has six wards, all electing councillors for the Lamu County Council. Members of Parliament ...

Source

Political leadership

H.E. Issa Abdalla Timamy is the current Governor and is deputized by H.E. Raphael Munyua. H.E. Yasin Twaha was the second Governor and was deputized by H.E. Aboud Bwana Abdulhakim First elected governor for the county was

Issa Timamy Issa Abdallah Issa Timamy (born 12 September 1958) is a Kenyan politician. He was the Governor of Lamu County until he lost the seat in the 2017 general election.But later regained his seat as the governor of Lamu on the previous elections held ...

and was deputized by H.E. Eric Kinyua Mugo. Anuar Loitiptip was the second elected senator after Abu Chiaba.The current Senator is Hon. Joseph Githuka The current Women Representative is Monica Mūthoni Marubu Ruweida Mohamed Obo was the women representative and was elected in 2017, before her wa
Shakila Abdalla
who was elected in 2013. For Lamu County, the County Executive Committee comprises:- Source

Education

There are 203 ECD centers 139 primary schools and 25 secondary schools. The county has also 58 adult training institutions, 6 vocational training centers, 3 university campus,

Health

There are a total of 45 health facilities in the county with one county referral hospital. County has 316 health personnel of different cadre. HIV prevalence is at 3.5% below the national 5.9%.

Transport and communication

The county isthe covered by 923.07 km of road network. Of this, 718.66 km is covered by earth surface, 198.41 km is

murram A gravel road is a type of unpaved road surfaced with gravel that has been brought to the site from a quarry or stream bed. They are common in less-developed nations, and also in the rural areas of developed nations such as Canada and the Uni ...

surface and 6 km is covered by

bitumen Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term a ...

. There are five Post Offices with 1,250 installed letter boxes, 653 rented letter boxes and 597 vacant letter boxes.

Trade and commerce

The main economic activities in the county include crop production, livestock production, fisheries, tourism and

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

, most notably quarrying. Lamu is rich in minerals like

titanium Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

, coral stones and

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of s ...

. Lamu town is termed as "the oldest and best-preserved Swahili settlement in

East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa: Due to the historical ...

” but neighboring islands also have numerous archaeological remnants of history dating as far back as the 14th Century. Among the challenges facing Lamu is

population growth Population growth is the increase in the number of people in a population or dispersed group. Actual global human population growth amounts to around 83 million annually, or 1.1% per year. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to ...

owing to migration into Lamu from other parts of the country, fueled partly by the anticipated opportunities accruing from the Lamu Port South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor. Other challenges include landlessness and poor land management, insufficient social services such as healthcare and education, inadequate supply of piped and fresh water, under-developed

infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...

, and

food insecurity Food security speaks to the availability of food in a country (or geography) and the ability of individuals within that country (geography) to access, afford, and source adequate foodstuffs. According to the United Nations' Committee on World F ...

. There are 9 trading centers, 606 registered businesses, 465 licensed retail traders, 7 supermarkets, 27 licensed wholesale traders and 98 registered hotels. The county has two National reserves: Dodori, and Kiunga Marine, covering 877 km^2. Dodori is a breeding ground for the East Lamu Topi, and consists of a variety of

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

s and birdlife including lions,

elephant shrew Elephant shrews, also called jumping shrews or sengis, are small insectivorous mammals native to Africa, belonging to the family Macroscelididae, in the order Macroscelidea. Their traditional common English name "elephant shrew" comes from a pe ...

, hippo,

pelican Pelicans (genus ''Pelecanus'') are a genus of large water birds that make up the family Pelecanidae. They are characterized by a long beak and a large throat pouch used for catching prey and draining water from the scooped-up contents before s ...

s, and many more. It has the most varied species of

mangrove forest Mangrove forests, also called mangrove swamps, mangrove thickets or mangals, are productive wetlands that occur in coastal intertidal zones. Mangrove forests grow mainly at tropical and subtropical latitudes because mangroves cannot withstand fr ...

in Kenya at Dodori Creek. Kiunga Marine Reserve consists of several

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

s rich with biodiversity including valuable

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. Co ...

s, sea grass, extensive

s, and the endangered

sea turtle Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead, ...

s and

dugong The dugong (; ''Dugong dugon'') is a marine mammal. It is one of four living species of the order Sirenia, which also includes three species of manatees. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest m ...

s. Kiwayu Island, which is part of the reserve, is deemed as having the most pristine beach in Kenya.

Villages and settlements

References

www.lamu.go.ke

External links

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Kenya AdminLevels 1-4
* http://www.mambolook.com/lamu {{Authority control Counties of Kenya