Nairobi County registered the best variety of marriages in Kenya final yr, in accordance with the Kenya Vital Statistics Report 2024, launched by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) on Wednesday.
A complete of 5,826 marriage had been legally registered in Nairobi, which is 39.6% of all marriages registered within the nation final yr. The capital’s supremacy is an affidavit to its function because the nation’s primary middle for authorized marriages.
Other main counties with reference to marriage registration numbers had been Kiambu (4,844), Machakos (4,807), Nakuru (3,819), and Uasin Gishu (3,179). Collectively, the 5 represented a major proportion of Kenya’s whole marriage registrations for 2024.
But whereas 1000’s of marriages had been reported in some counties, others had not even crossed a dozen. Only 8 marriages had been reported for Wajir, then Turkana (16), Lamu (20), Garissa (21) and Tana River (22). KNBS famous that these counties have been reporting fewer than 10 marriages yearly between 2020 to 2024.
The report additionally noticed regional variations in marriage developments within the final 5 years. Nairobi posted regular progress, with marriages going up from 3,796 in 2020 to five,826 in 2024, a present of accelerating reputation of formal union within the metropolis.
Kiambu County alternatively confirmed much less consistency. With 1,098 weddings in 2021, the numbers barely picked as much as 1,235 in 2022, earlier than falling sharply to 747 in 2024.
Machakos noticed a extra steady upward pattern, with 813 weddings in 2023 rising to 1,112 in 2024.
Marriage Registrations Drop Nationally
At the nationwide degree, Kenya noticed its registered marriages spike dramatically between 2020 and 2023, reaching a excessive of 20,600 in 2023. That charge slowed some in 2024, with 15,045 marriages registered as of Dec. 31, information reported to the Office of the Attorney General and Department of Justice indicated.
In marriage varieties, Christian and civil marriages dominated. Christian marriages hit their peak in 2021 at 13,456 registrations, and civil marriages hit their peak in 2023 at 7,185.
The remaining two, customary and Hindu marriages, had been far fewer. The customary marriages had been solely 11, registered inside a interval of 5 years, eight being in Kwale and three in Kisumu, whereas the Hindu marriages had been 18, unfold evenly in Nairobi and Mombasa.
It additionally reported 359 marriages with no specified kind, principally in Nairobi (217) and attributed to information entry errors by KNBS, the place it suggested that Kenya’s system of marriage registration ought to improve digital accuracy.
