Homa Bay is a bay and town on the south shore of Winam Gulf of Lake Victoria, in western Kenya. It lies near Mount Homa (in the Luo language Got Marahuma or God Uma ) and Ruma National Park, the latter noted for Jackson's hartebeests and roan antelope (the government has also released reticulated giraffes into the park).
Homa Bay was once the District Headquarters for all of South Nyanza District, Nyanza Province, but has now been divided into at least three districts. Homa Bay is now capital of Homa Bay County as per the new constitution. The town of Homa Bay hosts a Municipal Council. The municipality has an urban population of 32,174 and a total population of 55,532 (1999 census ).
Homa Bay municipality has six wards (Central, Kalanya, Kanyabala, Kanyadier/Kothidha, Katuma and Posta/Bonde). All of them belong to Rangwe Constituency, which has a total of fourteen wards. The remaining eight are located within Homa Bay County Council, the rural council of Homa Bay District.
Recent archaeological excavations in Kanjera South, located on the Homa Peninsula have yielded a combination of artefacts of the Oldowan culture and well preserved faunal remains in a sedimentary context that also allows for environmental reconstruction. The earlier findings by Louis Leakey and others include fragments of four anatomically modern humans associated with Pleistocene mammal fossils.
Famous quotes containing the word bay:
“Three miles long and two streets wide, the town curls around the bay ... a gaudy run with Mediterranean splashes of color, crowded steep-pitched roofs, fishing piers and fishing boats whose stench of mackerel and gasoline is as aphrodisiac to the sensuous nose as the clean bar-whisky smell of a nightclub where call girls congregate.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)