The Pokot people (also spelled Pökoot) live in West Pokot County and Baringo County in Kenya and in the Pokot District of the eastern Karamoja region in Uganda. They form a section of the Kalenjin ethnic group and speak the Pökoot language, which is broadly similar to the related Marakwet, Nandi, Tuken and other members of the Kalenjin language group

Pokot identity formed in the Kerio Valley perhaps as early as the late 18th and certainly not later than the mid 19th century. It emerged from the assimilation of the Sirkwa era Chok by the Pokotozek section of the Maliri.