“2019 Kenya population and housing census” document title page

Understanding population statistics in Kisii, Kenya

by Eric Bosire • 27 July 2023

According to Wikipedia¹, in regards to the 2019 census the total population of Kisii town is 13,422. With the size of the town, this number of people is obviously not right.

In a past article, I cited Wikipedia on the population number of Kisii Town and my editor was upset about this misleading number. For that reason, I resorted to finding out about population statistics in Kisii, Kenya and how they are done.

Population statistics is the collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data about human populations. These statistics typically include information on the size, composition, distribution, and characteristics of a population, such as age, gender, ethnicity, and education level.

A population is a set of identifiable groups of individuals or categories of people, it can be a country, a province, a district or a group of people with common features and characteristics.

Population statistics are not just getting the number of people in an area there is more to it than meets the eye. In that regard, I sought to know more about this subject matter from the population experts in the country, The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.

I visited the The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics offices and found the Kisii county statistics officer Mrs. Njoki, who was very welcoming and glad to share information about Kisii county statistics, especially in Kisii town which is our area of interest.

I raised the Wikipedia population issue, Mrs Njoki responded and said, “the population of 13,422 by Wikipedia is for the Kisii Municipality. Some parts of Kisii town are not in the municipality.” The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics uses locations to get the population statistics of Kenya. Locations are administrative regions that are third-level subdivisions below counties and sub-counties.

These locations are further subdivided into sub-locations. “Kisii town comprises the municipality and 9 other sub-locations,” said Mrs. Njoki, “all the locations surrounding the town have sub-locations that form part of Kisii town, plus the municipality the town becomes complete,” she added.

She introduced to me a document showing all the population data of Kenya as of 2019.² I was able to look at Kisii county and to be precise, Kisii town. Using this document, Mrs Njoki took me through a tedious exercise of literally identifying all the sub-locations that make up Kisii Town.

First I had to get the name of a sub-county, then the names of its locations and sub-locations. I am lucky I come from Kisii county, therefore I am familiar with names and some of the areas in the region. If it were a person from a different part of the country, then he or she would have had more problems. Mind you, the statistics officer Mrs. Njoki is not from Kisii County either, therefore on Identifying most of the areas I had to do it on my own. I identified all the locations surrounding the town and in them I further identified the sub-locations that exactly form part of Kisii Town, note that not all of them form the town.

I could tell from Mrs Njoki facial expressions, that she was not going to do the calculations with me. I got out my phone, tapped on the calculator app and started doing the math. I used the population number of each sub-location to calculate the total population of Kisii Town, which I found to be approximately 300,000 people.

The document was quite helpful because I got to know all the sub-locations that make up Kisii town. However, the publishers of the document or rather the bureau should do a better job of indicating the locations and sub locations that form Kisii town and other towns in the county.

It took me almost four hours calculating the numbers, and I was not happy about it which begs the question, why can't the bureau be organized and have this information ready by themselves? for crying out loud, they are paid from the taxpayers' money to do their job.

According to Mrs. Njoki, population statistics help understand the social, economic, and demographic trends of a region or country. Governments, policymakers, and researchers use population statistics to make informed decisions about resource allocation, planning, and development. “The government uses population statistics to formulate policies like family planning where parents are taught on the right number of children to have and the right interval between their births”, said Mrs. Njoki.

Missionaries are interested in population statistics, especially those that haven't visited a certain area. I went to Migori Bible College and found Dr. Ezekiel Mwita who is a teacher and a missionary. Dr. Ezekiel said that population statistics helps them to know the areas that are not reached. “You'll find an area has a lot of churches and another doesn't, and therefore there is need to visit these areas with fewer churches.” said Dr. Ezekiel. They also get to know if they are reaching people or not.

Through population statistics missionaries are able to know the areas that are difficult and areas that are soft. “There are areas in Kenya that are so easy to preach the gospel and there are areas you might take a whole year before anybody accepts what you are preaching.” Said Dr. Ezekiel. By this, a missionary will be able to establish the right thing that is needed in an area. “You might discover that other missionaries came before you and failed, you need to figure out the wrong approach they used and change it.”

From what I learnt in my pursuit of information about population statistics in the Kenya Bureau of Statistics office is that people should be careful with Wikipedia because they might get half-baked information. However, we cannot clearly lay blame on Wikipedia. Any relevant body, government or private tasked with giving specific data should do it comprehensively.

Next: Should the church be regulated by the state?, by Eric Bosire.

Notes:

1 As of 2023-07-23, the precise statement on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kisii,_Kenya is: “As of 2019, Kisii town in its location of Kisii Central had a population of 13,422, with 6,839 male and 6,583 female, and a population density of 4,011/km² in an area of 3.3 km².” back

2 Kenya National Bureau of Statistics: 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census Volume II: Distribution of Population by Administrative Units", https://www.knbs.or.ke/?wpdmpro=2019-kenya-population-and-housing-census-volume-ii-distribution-of-population-by-administrative-units&wpdmdl=5728&ind=MT12f0IDWVM-a0J2dc3Xi42qelbruMwR0a7XIWb0iAwnedEVNBjd_1FEwMun_eI5
back

About the author:
Eric Bosire is a Kenyan Journalist. He is based in Kisii.

Suggested citation:
Eric Bosire: Understanding population statistics in Kisii, Kenya, MissionField News (ISSN 2813-2270) https://missionfield.news/2023/11_Statistics 2023-07-27.