East Africa Protectorate | ||||||||||
Dominion of the Sultan of Zanzibar and Protectorate of the British Empire | ||||||||||
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Anthem God Save the Queen/King |
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Map of British East Africa in 1911.
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Capital |
Mombasa (1895–1905) Nairobi (1905–1920) |
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Languages | English (official) Swahili, Gikuyu, Kamba, Luo, Gusii, Meru, Nandi–Markweta also spoken |
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Religion | Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, traditional African religion | |||||||||
Government | Constitutional monarchy | |||||||||
Monarch | ||||||||||
• | 1895–1901 | Victoria | ||||||||
• | 1910–1920 | George V | ||||||||
Commissioner, Governor | ||||||||||
• | 1895–1897 | Arthur Henry Hardinge | ||||||||
• | 1919–1920 | Sir Edward Northey | ||||||||
History | ||||||||||
• | Established | 1 July 1895 | ||||||||
• | Disestablished | 23 July 1920 | ||||||||
Area | ||||||||||
• | 1904 | 696,447 km² (268,900 sq mi) | ||||||||
Population | ||||||||||
• | 1904 est. | 4,000,000 | ||||||||
Density | 5.7 /km² (14.9 /sq mi) | |||||||||
Currency | Rupee | |||||||||
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Today part of | Kenya |
East Africa Protectorate (also known as British East Africa) was an area in the African Great Lakes occupying roughly the same terrain as present-day Kenya (approximately 639,209 km2 (246,800 sq mi)) from the Indian Ocean inland to Uganda and the Great Rift Valley. Although part of the dominions of the Sultan of Zanzibar, it was controlled by Britain in the late 19th century; it grew out of British commercial interests in the area in the 1880s and remained a protectorate until 1920 when it became the colony of Kenya, save for a 16-kilometre-wide (10 mi) coastal strip that became the Kenya protectorate.
European missionaries began settling in the area from Mombasa to Mount Kilimanjaro in the 1840s, nominally under the protection of the Sultan of Zanzibar. In 1886, the British government encouraged William Mackinnon, who already had an agreement with the Sultan and whose shipping company traded extensively in the African Great Lakes, to establish British influence in the region. He formed a British East Africa Association which led to the Imperial British East Africa Company being chartered in 1888 and given the original grant to administer the dependency. It administered about 240 kilometres (150 mi) of coastline stretching from the River Jubba via Mombasa to German East Africa which were leased from the Sultan. The British "sphere of influence", agreed at the Berlin Conference of 1885, extended up the coast and inland across the future Kenya and after 1890 included Uganda as well. Mombasa was the administrative centre at this time.