Get to know your hometown. How did Kimilili get its name, history and other interesting facts
Kimilili map and administrative facts
Kimilili is a town in Kimilili constituency, Bungoma County in Western Kenya. Kimilili constituency is an area represented by a Member of Parliament in Kenya’s parliament. Kimilili subcounty, which coincides with the constituency, is one of the devolved units of Bungoma County through which which the county government provides decentralized functions and services.
Map
What’s in a name? How Kimilili got it’s name
Kimilili got it name from a borrowed Kalenjin (and here we mean Saboat) word kemilil which means leopard. Just like Chesamisi, Kimilili lies in the slopes of Mt. Elgon and was originally a place with many leopards.
Did you know?
Did you know that Kimilili town is also known as “Kwa Pascari”? This name for Kimilili town comes from Omwami Pascari Nabwana, a magnanimous figure who history threatens to forget widely considered to be the founding father of Kimilili town. It is Pascari’s leadership as the first African chair of the then colonial District council of Kimilili that gave a scholarship to none other than Masinde Muliro to go for further studies in South Africa. Did you know that it is also in Kimilili that Bukusu spiritual leader and neglected freedom fighter Elijah Masinde, Masinde wa Nameme okhwa Mwasame, rose to leadership as a junior elder. His clash with the Quaker religion over polygamy and many other cultural differences that not only radicalized him, but also formed the basis of his activism for human rights that begun in the 1940s and lasted well into independent Kenya; a hallmark of which was his imprisonment by the Jomo Kenyatta government for almost 15 years. Did you know that Kimilili was one, if not the first, cosmopolitan urban areas of preset day Kenya?
Famous institutions and paces bearing the Kimilili name
- Kimilili Market that runs every Thursday is one of the largest and busiest open air markets in Western Kenya, Kimilili Police Station
Visit Kimilili home on the internet
Join us for news, business, stories and fun as we go out and about in Kimilili an interesting, growing spot in Western Kenya.
