Bungoma

Bungoma is a town in Western Province of Kenya, bordered by Uganda in the west. Bungoma town was established as a trading centre in the early 20th century. The town is the headquarters of Kenya's Bungoma District and it hosts a municipal council. Bungoma municipality has an urban population of 44.196 and a total population of 60,650 (1999 census [Kenya National Bureau of Statistics: [http://treasury.go.ke/cbs.go.ke/pdf/authority.pdf "Population of local authorities"] ] ).The major economic activity is farming and business supported by the Kenya-Uganda railway which passes through the town on a daily basis. Industrial centers are found at Nzoia and Webuye.

Being in a region that practices wife inheritance, Bungoma has seen a large growth of reported HIV/AIDS cases in the last 10 years, however wife inheritance is now not as widely accepted in the traditional sense and the HIV problem is accentuated by other practices predominatly by males. The area is also the centre of the Bukusu circumcision rites, which occur every even year, in August and December.

Bungoma municipality has eight wards, four of them (Khalaba, Mjini, Sinoko and Stadium) are part of the Kanduyi Constituency and the remaining four (Namasanda, Musikoma, Sio and Siritanyi) are part of the Bumula Constituency [Electoral Commission of Kenya: [http://www.eck.or.ke/downloads/pollingcentres.pdf "Registration centres by electoral area and constituency"] ] .

References

External links

* [http://www.fallingrain.com/world/KE/9/Bungoma.html fallingrain.com: Weather and airport maps for Bungoma]
* [http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~port/kenyafriends/bung.hist.html Some local Bungoma history]