Kakamega is a town in western Kenya lying about 30 km north of the Equator. It is the headquarters of Kakamega County that has a population of 1,867,579 (2019 census). Kakamega is 52 km north of Kisumu, the tenth largest city in Kenya and considered the heart of Luhya land. The average elevation of Kakamega is 1,535 metres. The county has 12 constituencies in total, namely Butere, Mumias East,Mumias West, Matungu, Khwisero, Shinyalu, Lurambi, ikolomani, Lugari, Malava, Navakholo and Likuyani. Kakamega was so named because the word "kakamega" translates roughly to "pinch" in Luhya, which was used to describe how European colonists would eat the staple food, ugali. Naming It is often told that Kakamega derives its modern name from the local dialect. The story goes that when European settlers first visited the area now known as Kakamega and were offered maize meal, the local staple food called Obusuma, they tried to emulate the eating style for which the tribe was famous. To the hosts though, the visitors were more like ‘pinching’ the Obusuma. The resulting administrative area was named "Kakamega", which roughly translates to ‘pinch.’ Actually the name is from the former Nandi people who inhabited the area prior to the Luhya. There is a tale that the town was originally inhabited by the Nandi, and when the building started swelling, the Nandi called the area “Kokomego” which loosely translate into there is a lot of buildings, in the Nandi dialect. The new inhabitants took the name and coined it into Kakamega. Economics The local inhabitants are mostly the Luhya tribe, whose economic activity is mainly cash and food crop farming. Kakamega serves as the headquarters of Mumias Sugar, previously Kenya's largest sugar processing company located in the town of Mumias. Kakamega was the scene of the Kakamega gold rush in the early 1930s, fueled partly by the reports of the geologist Albert Ernest Kitson. Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology is a new institution of higher learning created by an act of parliament in December 2006 which is in the heart of Kakamega town on the Kakamega-Webuye road. It is expected to spur growth in this capital of Western Province. Kakamega Forest is the main tourist destination in the area. Another attraction used to be the Crying Stone of Ilesi (Ikhongo Murwi) located along the Kisumu-Kakamega highway. It is a 40 metre high rock dome resembling a