Kakamega
Coordinates: 0 ° 17 ' N , 34 ° 45' E
Kakamega in Kenya is the rather inconspicuous capital of Kakamega County (and until 2013 of Western Province ) with 92,081 inhabitants (2005) and a lively market. The city is located about 60 km north of Kisumu and Lake Victoria directly on the equator on a rock-strewn high plateau with a lot of rain, mosquitoes and very fertile land.
By 1930 the city was the center of a short-lived gold rush. Even today, tiny amounts of gold are painstakingly washed out of the ground in a small, dilapidated gold mine.
In addition to the usual administrative institutions such as the provincial administration, hospital, post office and prison, Kakamega has a 9-hole golf course (with golf hotel), a stadium, an AIDS orphanage and several churches. It is the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Kakamega .
Most of the city's residents are Luhya . The birth rate in this region was the highest in the world for 4.2 years, but has now dropped to 2.9.
Since 2005 the Kakamega College has been expanded to become a university with an agricultural and ecological focus. The Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST) has existed since December 2006 . It is currently (2009) headed by Vice Chancellor Prof. Barasa CC Wangila.
In the immediate vicinity of the city is the very last piece of rainforest, which stretches from the Congo via Uganda in a narrow corner to Kenya and enjoys poor protection as the Kakamega Forest National Reserve . The BIOTA project for the conservation of the rainforest has been working in this forest since 2001 .
The name is derived from the Swahili word "kaka" = brother and "mega" = big, so big brother.