Luo people

Name: Luo people: census figures, languages and lineage
Creator: Genetik
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Луо · Q12826303

language area per Glottologcensus counts

4,044,440

Kenya, census 2009 (national and/or ethnic group, UN)

Nilotic

language family (Glottolog)

In brief

The largest documented number lives in Kenya: 4,044,440 people in the 2009 census.

Main language: Luo (Kenya and Tanzania). Glottolog classifies it in the Nilotic family.

Where they live: census figures

Each figure comes from the country's official census. Censuses define belonging differently (self-identification, citizenship, mother tongue, ancestry); the type is given on each row.

Kenya2009 · national and/or ethnic group, UN · «Luo» · [1]

4,044,440

Languages and their lineage

Luo (Kenya and Tanzania)

Niloticnilo1247
Western Niloticwest2493
Lwoolwoo1234
Southern Lwoosout2831
Adhola-Alur-Luoadho1241
Adhola-Luoadho1242
Luo (Kenya and Tanzania)luok1236

People-to-language links: Wikidata (properties P103 and P2936), checked against ISO 639-3 codes. Language classification: Glottolog 5.3.

Peoples of the same language family

Kalenjin people Turkana people Maasai people Samburu people

Sources

United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD). Demographic Yearbook, table 26: Population by national and/or ethnic group. Kenya, Census - de facto - complete tabulation, Final figure, complete. https://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=POP&f=tableCode%3a26%3bsexCode%3a0%3bareaCode%3a0%3bcountr…
Hammarström H., Forkel R., Haspelmath M., Bank S. (2026). Glottolog 5.3. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. glottolog.org (CC BY 4.0)