President Uhuru Kenyatta has signed into law the Urban Areas and Cities (Amendment) Bill 2017.
The new law allows County Governments to review the criteria provided for classifying an area as a city, municipality, town or market centre.
Under the new law, the number of the resident population required for a city has been reduced by half, from 500,000 to 250,000 people.
The same law also allows a county to declare an urban area a municipality if it has a resident population of at least 50,000 residents while for an area to be declared a town it has to have at least a population of 10,000 residents and a market centre would only require a population of at least 2,000 residents.
The law proposes the establishment of boards to govern and manage cities and municipalities and also outlines specific requirements of those who will be appointed to manage the concerned boards.