Mumias
| Mumias | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic data | |||
| county | Kakamega County | ||
| Residents | 23,000 pop. | ||
| height | 1268 m | ||
| Telephone code | 056 | ||
| Coordinates | 0 ° 20 ′ N , 34 ° 29 ′ E | ||
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Mumias is a small town in Kakamega County in western Kenya , between Mount Elgon and Lake Victoria . Mumias has about 64,000 inhabitants including the semi-urban outskirts of Ekero, Lureko, Matawa and the settlements around the sugar factory. Around 23,000 people live directly in the city. Until its dissolution, Mumias was the capital of the Mumias Division in the Butere / Mumias District .
The city is connected by road links with Kakamega in the east, Busia in the west, Bungoma in the north and Butere in the south. There is also a small airport here.
economy
Mumia's economy is primarily based on sugar production , the Mumias Sugar Company is the main employer in the region and, with a market share of 60%, one of Kenya's leading sugar producers .
history
Mumias was founded in the second half of the 19th century as the seat of nabongo Mumia, a chief of the Wanga. Mumia had achieved a special position among the Luhya-speaking groups. Due to the strategically clever location of his capital, he established diplomatic contacts with caravan traders from the coast and became a port of call for ivory and slave caravans, who rested here and bought food before continuing. Mumia also established worthwhile alliances with the British missionaries and travelers who came to Mumias on the caravan routes towards the end of the 19th century. Mumias became the central base camp for the British administrators who followed the first whites. Mumia provided them with food and provided local guides and warriors, while the British, in turn, contributed with military support to the expansion of its territories, its power and its reputation.
In 1895 Charles William Hobley established the first permanent administrative post of the colonial administration in western Kenya in Mumias. Mumia made warriors available for punitive expeditions against neighboring peoples and was appointed Paramount Chief by the British.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, Population and Housing Census 2009, Volume 1A-Population Distribution by Administrative Units, p. 185 , accessed October 28, 2014.
- ↑ mumias-sugar.com , accessed March 6, 2010.
- ↑ Gideon S. Were: A History of the Abaluyia of Western Kenya c. 1500-1930 , Nairobi 1967.
- ^ Charles William Hobley: Kenya From Chartered Company to Crown Colony , London 1929, pp. 82-88.