East Africa Protectorate

The East Africa Protectorate was a British protectorate in the region of present-day Kenya. It grew out of British commercial interests in the 1880s, when the Imperial British East Africa Company was chartered to administer the area. On 1 July 1895 the British government proclaimed a protectorate and transferred its administration from the company to the Foreign Office. Mombasa was the administrative centre and first capital; in 1905 the capital was shifted to Nairobi, which became the colony's principal city. In 1902 the protectorate's boundaries were extended to include the Eastern Province of Uganda. A regular government and legislature were constituted by Order in Council in 1906. On 23 July 1920 the inland areas were annexed as British dominions and became the Colony of Kenya, while a narrow coastal strip remained the Kenya Protectorate. The protectorate's economy was built on the Uganda railway, European settlement in the highlands, and the export of agricultural produce, developments that shaped colonial Kenya.