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Kibera

Largest neighborhood in Nairobi

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ579521 ↗
Source-derived summary

Kibera (Kinubi: Forest or Jungle) is a division and neighbourhood of Nairobi, Kenya, 6.6 kilometres (4.1 mi) from the city centre. Kibera is the largest and most studied slum in Nairobi, and also the largest urban slum in all of Africa. The 2009 Kenya Population and Housing Census reports Kibera's population as 170,070, contrary to previous estimates of one or two million people. Other sources suggest the total Kibera population may be 500,000 to well over 1,000,000 depending on which slums are included in defining Kibera.

In 2009, a survey conducted by the French Institute for Research in Africa found that the average Kibera slum resident lives in extreme poverty, earning less than US$2 per day. Unemployment rates are high. 12% of the population are living with HIV. Cases of assault and rape are common. There are few schools, and most people cannot afford education for their children. Clean water is scarce. Diseases caused by poor hygiene are prevalent.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Kibera” is largest neighborhood in Nairobi. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Kibera, Largest and neighborhood, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2009—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Kibera, Largest and neighborhood is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “largest neighborhood in Nairobi” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q579521. VIAF identifies the subject as 126656995. The Library of Congress control number is n79063029. Authority coordinates are -1.313, 36.786. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2009.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Kibera”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Kibera primary sources, Kibera archive and Kibera research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Kibera”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Kibera” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.