Key facts about Kenya
5 to 10 facts that help explain what makes the country distinctive.
The country that invented banking by text message
Launched in 2007 by Safaricom, M-Pesa lets people send and receive money with a simple mobile phone; it has become the country's main means of payment and has been copied around the world.
The world's largest tea exporter
Grown in the highlands of Kericho and the foothills of Mount Kenya, Kenyan black tea is the most exported in the world and one of the country's leading sources of foreign currency.
A marathon in under two hours
On October 12, 2019 in Vienna, Eliud Kipchoge ran the 42.195 km in 1 h 59 min 40 s, a first in history, in a specially organised race not ratified as a record.
Africa's first woman Nobel Peace laureate
Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement, which planted more than 30 million trees, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.
A Supreme Court that annulled a presidential election
In 2017 Kenya's Supreme Court overturned Uhuru Kenyatta's re-election because of irregularities, a first on the African continent; the vote was rerun two months later.
Africa's leading producer of geothermal electricity
The Olkaria power plants, in the heart of the Rift Valley, make Kenya the continent's leading producer of geothermal energy; this source supplies nearly half of its electricity.