25 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT KISUMU

Well it has been a while since I posted my last entry and I hope I make up for it today. In the next few days I want to try and give you a few facts and figures about the different towns found in western Kenya. I have begun with Kisumu for a number of reasons
• It is the biggest urban area in western Kenya
• It is the only city in western Kenya.
• We have to start somewhere
• There was more information to be found easily on the net
• I live here!!

As you can see my reasons might not be considered the most scientific, but at least it gets the ball rolling . I unfortunately will have to post this without any accompanying pictures, but I hope to rectify this pretty soon. While I do not wish to try to give you a whole treatise on Kisumu (or the other towns I will be blogging about) I have come up with a number of facts that I thought might be of interest, both to the readers who have never been to Kisumu and to residents and frequent visitors. (I am still addressing my million followers, remember ?? )

To compile this post, I relied on a number of sites which would give much more detail to anybody interested in getting further facts and figures. This include the document Kisumu City Development Strategy -which can be found here , and which contains a good summary of information on Kisumu. This site is a wellspring of interesting historical and geographical facts . You can also have a look at an online site for Kisumu residents past and present, and a brief Wikipedia article which includes a map of Kisumu.

So, without further ado here are my 25 facts about Kisumu city:

1. The name Kisumu refers to both the city and the district in which it is located.

2. It is situated on the banks of Lake Victoria, known locally as Nam Sango or Nam Lolwe .

3. It is the second most important city -after Kampala- in the greater Lake Victoria Basin.

4. Its climate is classified as humid (over 1,100m a.s.l., for those who know what that means).Temperature can reach as high as 34 degrees celcius during the hot seasons.

5. It covers an area of approximately 417 Km². Out of this , nearly a third (approximately120 Km²) is under water.

6. It is the third largest city in Kenya, a fact that its locals take great proud in. ( The other fact we take great pride in is Barrack Obama , considered by all to be a native son ).

7. Its locals are mainly of Luo ethnicity, but over time a number of other communities including the Kisii, Luhya and Kikuyu have built a presence in the area.

8. It has traditionally had one of the biggest Kenyan Asian communities, many of whom were direct descendants of the workers who built the railway line.

9. Its name is from the Luo word ‘kisuma’, itself a derivative of ‘sumo’ which means barter trade.

10. It was traditionally a market place where different communities came to barter various commodities.

11. It grew into a town after the Mombasa railway line passed through it in 1901.

12. The new town was named Port Florence after Florence Preston, the wife of the senior railways engineer.

13. The townships boundaries were first gazetted in 1902 when its name was changed back to Kisumu.

14. It was considered a hardship area by the white settlers due to its very hot temperatures and high malaria rates. ( Some settlers , in fact believed -erroneously - that it derived its name from the Swahili word sumu meaning poison because of the dangerous malaria carrying mosquitoes ).

15. Kisumu was also privileged to host the first air flight in East and Central Africa. An inaugural mail flight from Kisumu to England took place in 1931.

16. In 1965 Grace Onyango was elected as mayor of Kisumu town , becoming the first woman mayor in Africa.

17. It is the Headquarters of both Kisumu District and Nyanza Province. The provincial headquarters is the tallest building in the city.

18. It is one of only two urban areas in Kenya which can be accessed by road, water, rail and air.

19. Its biggest hospital is the New Nyanza Provincial Hospital, known locally as ‘Russia’ because it was built with funding from the Soviet government in the 1960’s. ( Its second largest hospital is the Kisumu District Hospital , known locally as either District or General ) .

20. While there a very many different food types to be found here, Kisumu is most commonly associated with fish, which is found in plenty and comes from Lake Victoria.

21. Maseno University, located a few kilometers from Kisumu, has a town campus within the city centre. Other Universities such as Kenyatta, Nairobi and Catholic also have distant learning centres in the city, offering a wide range of education opportunities.

22. Kisumu lies within the boundaries of two political constituencies – Kisumu Town East and Kisumu Town West.

23. Kondele shopping centre arguably boasts one of the highest number of bars and drinking places per kilometer in Kenya ( if not Africa).

24. There are a number of hotels and eateries ranging from low end to high end situated right on the shores of Lake Victoria from where one can eat freshly caught fish.

25. The language spoken in Kisumu are Luo English and Kiswahili with a sizeable number of people speaking Ekegusii, Hindi, Kikuyu and the various Luhya dialects. As is the case all over Kenya, most Kisumu residents speak at least two languages.

Well there you have it : my 25 interesting facts about Kisumu . A list like this is bound to be challenged , so if you have any facts you think are more interesting than these tell us about them and I will make a follow-up post with your suggestions.