TechnicalGIS

Kenya GIS data sources

Region
Eastern Africa
ISO 3166
KE · KEN
Sources
23
Themes
13
Last verified

Where to download GIS data for Kenya: 23 sources across 13 themes, led by Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development and Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. 12 offer vector downloads such as Shapefile, GeoPackage or GeoJSON. 12 are under an open licence. Every link was last checked on 18 Oct 2026.

Country atlases

National and OpenStreetMap sources for Kenya

Boundaries & admin 2

Administrative boundary data for every country

  • Subnational administrative boundaries (COD-AB) (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    OCHA / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Humanitarian common operational dataset of administrative boundaries for levels 0–2 with P-codes; source: IEBC.

    • Boundaries & admin
    Licence
    CC BY 3.0 IGO
    Formats
    File Geodatabase, GeoJSON, Shapefile, XLSX
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

  • geoBoundaries administrative boundaries (opens in a new tab)

    API Cost: Free

    William & Mary geoLab

    JSON API listing every available admin level with direct download links.

    • Boundaries & admin
    Licence
    Varies (open; see metadata)
    Formats
    GeoJSON, Shapefile, TopoJSON
    Link
    geoboundaries.org

    Verified

Imagery 1

Satellite and aerial imagery for every country

  • Digital Earth Africa Map (opens in a new tab)

    Web viewer Cost: Free

    Digital Earth Africa · Africa

    Viewer for analysis-ready Landsat and Sentinel imagery and derived products such as water observations, cropland extent and coastlines; data are also open on AWS.

    • Imagery
    • Land cover
    • Hydrology
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    GeoTIFF, WMS
    Link
    maps.digitalearth.africa

    Verified

Land cover 2

Land cover datasets for every country

  • RCMRD Open Data (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development · Eastern & Southern Africa

    • Land cover
    • Boundaries & admin
    Licence
    Varies by dataset
    Formats
    Shapefile, GeoTIFF
    Link
    opendata.rcmrd.org

    Verified

  • RCMRD Geoportal (opens in a new tab)

    Portal Cost: Free

    Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development · Eastern & Southern Africa

    Regional catalogue of SERVIR Eastern and Southern Africa products such as land cover, crop and drought layers.

    • Land cover
    • Agriculture & soils
    • Natural hazards
    Licence
    Varies by dataset
    Formats
    Shapefile, GeoTIFF
    Link
    geoportal.rcmrd.org

    Verified

Buildings 3

Building footprint data for every country

  • GRID3 settlement extents (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    GRID3 / CIESIN, Columbia University · National

    Settlement polygons classified as built-up areas, small settlement areas or hamlets, derived from building footprints and useful for microplanning.

    • Buildings
    • Population
    Licence
    CC BY-SA 4.0
    Formats
    GeoPackage
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

  • Copernicus Global Human Settlement Layer (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    European Commission JRC / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Country clip of GHSL built-up surface, population and degree-of-urbanisation grids derived from satellite imagery.

    • Buildings
    • Population
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    GeoTIFF
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

  • Google Open Buildings (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    Google Research · Africa, Asia and Latin America

    Building footprint polygons detected from high-resolution imagery, with confidence scores and a 2.5D temporal dataset; download by S2 tile.

    • Buildings
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0 or ODbL 1.0
    Formats
    CSV, GeoJSON
    Link
    sites.research.google

    Verified

Population 5

Gridded population data for every country

  • Subnational population statistics (COD-PS) (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    UNFPA / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Sex- and age-disaggregated population statistics for levels 0–2 (reference year 2019), keyed to the COD-AB P-codes for joining to boundaries.

    • Population
    • Census & statistics
    Licence
    CC BY 3.0 IGO
    Formats
    CSV, XLSX
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

  • WorldPop population counts 2015–2030 (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    WorldPop, University of Southampton · National

    Annual gridded estimates of people per ~100 m cell from 2015 to 2030, modelled with random forest dasymetric mapping.

    • Population
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    GeoTIFF
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

  • High Resolution Population Density Maps (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    Meta Data for Good / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Roughly 30 m population density rasters derived from building detection in satellite imagery, with layers for women, men, children, youth and the elderly.

    • Population
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    CSV, GeoTIFF
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

  • 2019 census results (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    Kenya National Bureau of Statistics · National

    Volumes of the 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census, with population by county and sub-county.

    • Population
    • Census & statistics
    Licence
    See publisher terms
    Formats
    PDF
    Link
    knbs.or.ke

    Verified

  • Kenya Population and Housing Census 2019 (KeNADA) (opens in a new tab)

    Portal Cost: Free with registration

    Kenya National Bureau of Statistics · National

    Census documentation and microdata catalogue entry; access to microdata requires registration and approval.

    • Population
    • Census & statistics
    Licence
    See publisher terms
    Formats
    PDF, CSV
    Link
    statistics.knbs.or.ke

    Verified

Census & statistics 2

Census and statistics data for every country

  • Kenya Open Data (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    Government of Kenya · National

    Government open data hub with county-level statistics and some spatial layers.

    • Census & statistics
    • Open data portal
    Licence
    See publisher terms
    Formats
    CSV, Shapefile, GeoJSON
    Link
    opendata.go.ke

    Verified

  • Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (opens in a new tab)

    Portal Cost: Free

    Kenya National Bureau of Statistics

    National statistical office (from the UN Statistics Division directory).

    • Census & statistics
    Licence
    See publisher terms
    Link
    knbs.or.ke

    Verified

Transport 1

Road, rail and transport data for every country

Climate & weather 2

Climate and weather data for every country

  • Rainfall indicators at subnational level (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    WFP / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Dekadal CHIRPS rainfall totals and anomalies aggregated by administrative unit from 1981, updated regularly.

    • Climate & weather
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    CSV
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

  • Kenya Meteorological Department (opens in a new tab)

    Portal Cost: Free

    Kenya Meteorological Department · National

    National weather service publishing forecasts, seasonal outlooks and climate bulletins.

    • Climate & weather
    Licence
    See publisher terms
    Formats
    PDF
    Link
    meteo.go.ke

    Verified

Agriculture & soils 2

Agriculture and soil data for every country

  • Livelihood zones (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    FEWS NET · National

    Livelihood zone map and shapefile describing how households obtain food and income, used for food security analysis.

    • Agriculture & soils
    Licence
    See publisher terms
    Formats
    Shapefile, PDF
    Link
    fews.net

    Verified

  • iSDAsoil (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    iSDA · Africa

    Predicted soil properties such as pH, carbon, nitrogen and texture at 30 m resolution for two depths, available as cloud-optimised GeoTIFFs and a map viewer.

    • Agriculture & soils
    • Environment
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    GeoTIFF
    Link
    isda-africa.com

    Verified

Environment 2

Environmental and protected area data for every country

  • Protected and conserved areas (WDPCA) (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    UNEP-WCMC and IUCN / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Country extract of the World Database on Protected and Conserved Areas, including OECMs, with designation and IUCN category.

    • Environment
    Licence
    Free for non-commercial use; see UNEP-WCMC terms
    Formats
    GeoJSON, GeoPackage, CSV
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

  • Kenya GIS data (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    World Resources Institute · National

    Shapefiles from the Kenya ecosystem and poverty atlases covering water, agriculture, wildlife and poverty indicators.

    • Environment
    • Hydrology
    • Population
    • Agriculture & soils
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    Shapefile
    Link
    wri.org

    Verified

Open data portal 1

Open geospatial data portals for every country

  • Kenya GeoPortal (opens in a new tab)

    Portal Cost: Free

    Esri Eastern Africa / Africa GeoPortal · National

    Country hub of the Africa GeoPortal aggregating authoritative layers such as counties, infrastructure and census indicators.

    • Open data portal
    • Boundaries & admin
    • Population
    Licence
    Varies by dataset
    Formats
    Shapefile, GeoJSON, CSV
    Link
    kenya.africageoportal.com

    Verified

Global datasets that cover Kenya

Worldwide and continental layers that include Kenya, useful where national data is missing, restricted or inconsistent across borders.

Boundaries & admin
Elevation / DEM
Imagery
Land cover
Buildings
Population
Census & statistics
Transport
Hydrology
Climate & weather
Natural hazards
Agriculture & soils
Environment
Open data portal

Browse all 127 global datasets

Tutorials that use this kind of data

Neighbouring countries