The Gross County Product measures wealth and welfare in the counties. It is derived by dividing the GCP by the county's population.
Counties with higher GCPs per capita tend also to have higher living standards and lower poverty levels.
Quick Facts
- Kenya’s GDP per capita in 2024 was KSh 309,460.
- Nairobi County had the highest GCP per capita of Ksh 850,332.
- Mombasa had the second-highest GCP per capita of Ksh 530,747.
- The county with the lowest GCP per capita in 2024 was Wajir at KSh 85,600.
Understanding the Gross County Per Product per capita
The Gross County Product per capita is calculated by dividing a county's Gross County Product (GCP) by its population.
For instance, in 2024, Kenya's GDP was Ksh 16.2 trillion, which, when divided by the country's total population in that year, yielded a GDP per capita of Ksh 309,460.[1] [2]
We arrive at county GDPs in the same way. Nairobi's GDP was Ksh 4.1 trillion in 2024, and its population was 4,828,205 in the same year. The resulting GCP per capita for Nairobi County in 2024 was Ksh 850,332.
Nairobi, Mombasa, and Nakuru had the highest nominal GCP per capita
Nairobi County had the highest GCP per capita in 2024 at Ksh 850,332. Mombasa County followed it with a GCP per capita of Ksh 530,747.[3]
Nyeri was third with a GCP per capita of Ksh 339,903. Others include Embu at Ksh 334,159, Nakuru at Ksh 322,040, Meru at Ksh 319,393, Machakos at Ksh 316,919, Nyandarua at Ksh 308,006, and Kiambu at Ksh 303,248.
The counties with the lowest GCP per capita were Wajir, at Ksh 85,600; Mandera, at Ksh 89,903; Garissa, at Ksh 93,965; Samburu, at Ksh 125,400; and Busia, at Ksh 133,924.
Other counties with low GCP per capita were Tana River at Ksh 141,503, Isiolo at Ksh 142,993, Migori at Ksh 145,156, Makueni at Ksh 151,078, Siaya at Ksh 151,968, and Kakamega at Ksh 155,285.
Counties with a higher GCP per capita also have lower poverty levels
The GCP per capita can be used to measure wellbeing in the same way GDP per capita is used. As a result, it serves as a strong subnational indicator of living standards and inequality in the counties.
The first panel of the chart below illustrates the relationship between a county's overall poverty rate and its GCP per capita. Counties with lower GCP per capita had higher poverty rates. Similarly, counties with higher GCPs per capita had lower poverty rates. This suggests that counties become more prosperous as their GCP per capita increases.
Counties with high GCP per capita had high standards of living as measured by HDI.
The lower panel from the chart above further shows the relationship between GCP and another measure of wellbeing: HDI.
The Human Development Index (HDI) measures a population's quality of life across three indicators: health, education, and standard of living.
The health dimension is measured by life expectancy, education by mean years of schooling, and standard of living by the gross national income per capita.
The closer values on the HDI scale get to one, the higher the standard of living of that county. The closer the values are to zero, the lower the quality of life.
In the chart above, counties with higher HDI values also had higher GCPs per capita. Those with lower HDI values had lower GCPs per capita. This suggests that as counties get wealthy, so do their living standards.
See Also
- Gross County Product – County GDP
- Kenya's Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
- Kenya's Gross National Income (GNI)
- The population of Kenya by county in 2025