The Turkana are a Nilotic people native to the Turkana County in northwest Kenya , a semi-arid climate region bordering Lake Turkana in the east, Pokot , Rendille and Samburu people to the south, Uganda to the west, and South Sudan and Ethiopia to the north.

According to the 2019 Kenyan census , Turkana number 1,016,174, or 2.14% of the Kenyan population, making the Turkana the third largest Nilotic ethnic group in Kenya, after the Kalenjin and the Luo , slightly more numerous than the Maasai , and the tenth largest ethnicity in all of Kenya.