Kanjonja

Coast Province covers over 80,000 km2 in the south-eastern part of Kenya, constituting about 15% of the country's land area. Most of the province's population resides within 100 km of the Indian Ocean, although large areas of the province are up to 400 km from the coast. The population is estimated at over 2 million inhabitants, or about 7% of Kenya's total population of 28.8 million (1997 estimate). Coast Province is home to a large number of ethnic groups; an estimated two-thirds of the population are members of related ethnic groups referred to collectively as the Mijikenda. The Mijikenda have a history in the area stretching back at least two centuries (Waaijenberg 1994). The other one-third of the province's inhabitants are migrants from Kenya's highlands. These migrants are primarily from the Machakos area of Eastern Province, the densely populated areas of western Kenya, and from central Kenya. These migrants generally have a stronger tradition of dairy cattle keeping than the Mijikenda. Increasingly, the population of the province lives in urban areas; at present about 45% live in Mombasa and other urban centres.