Census: Kenya has 38.6m people

Coast Province has 3.3 million people, Nairobi (3.1 million) with North Eastern having the least number of people at 2.3 million.

The census report also shows most and least populated districts, with areas in Nairobi topping the list.

Siaya, Molo, Kirinyaga, Mombasa, Igembe, Kisumu East and Nakuru are in the list of ten most populated districts in Kenya, while Laikipia North, Garbatulla, Marsabit, Samburu, Taveta are indicated as some of the areas having the least number of people.

Kenya's population has grown incrementally from the 2.5 million at the beginning of the last century to the current figure. In 1962, just before the country gained independence from the British, Kenya had 8.62 million people, a figure which rose to 10.9 million at the 1969 census, 15.3 million in 1979 and up to 21.4 million in 1989.

A total of Sh8.4 billion was spent in conducting the last census, with more than of that money being payments to the census staff. The release of the results has been postponed twice, because of what the Government termed as "“complexities in data analysis”.

Mr Oparanya cited challenges to the census exercise such as cash-flow problems, insecurity concerns, complex logistics for the counting of pastoralist communities and creation of new districts which raised the census budget. He also noted "competing national interests such as famine, drought, resettlement of IDPs", and post-election violence which disrupted mapping activities.