Kansas is a Midwestern state in the Central United States. The state is named after
the Kansas River that flows through it, which in turn derived its name from
the Siouan word Kansa meaning "People of the south winds." The capital
is Topeka and the largest city is Wichita.
Located
in the heartland of the country, Kansas is home to the geographical center
of the contiguous United States. Historically home to large numbers of Native
Americans who hunted buffalo there, the state was first settled by white Americans
in the 1850s. Beginning in 1854, abolitionists from New England and pro-slavery
settlers from neighboring Missouri rushed to the territory to determine if
Kansas would become a free state. Known as Bleeding Kansas, the state was
a hotbed of violence and chaos in its early days as these forces collided.
On January 29, 1861 Kansas entered the Union as a free state. After the Civil
War, the population of Kansas exploded after waves of immigrants turned the
prairie into productive farmland. Today, Kansas is one of the most productive
agricultural states, leading the nation in wheat production.
Kansas
is bordered by Nebraska on the north; Missouri on the east; Oklahoma on the
south; and Colorado on the west. It is located equidistant from the Pacific
and the Atlantic Ocean. The geodetic center of North America is located in
Osborne County. This spot is used as the central reference point for all maps
produced by the government. The geographic center of the 48 contiguous states
is located in Smith County near Lebanon, Kansas, and the geographic center
of Kansas is located in Barton County.
The state is divided up into 105 counties with 628 cities.
The state, lying in the great central plain of the United States, has a generally flat or undulating surface, and on a large scale appears almost perfectly flat. However, the land displays a gradual slope up from east to west; its altitude above the sea ranges from 684 feet (208 m) along the Verdigris River at Coffeyville in Montgomery County, to 4,039 feet (1,231 m) at Mount Sunflower, near the Colorado border, in Wallace County.
The Missouri River forms nearly 75 miles (120 km) of the state's northeastern boundary. The Kansas River, formed by the junction of the Smoky Hill and Republican rivers at appropriately-named Junction City, joins the Missouri at Kansas City, after a course of 170 miles (274 km) across the northeastern part of the state. The Arkansas River, rising in Colorado, flows with a tortuous course for nearly 500 miles (800 km) across three-fourths of the state. It forms, with its tributaries (the Little Arkansas, Ninescah, Walnut, Cow Creek, Cimarron, Verdigris, and the Neosho), the southern drainage system of the state. Other important rivers are the Saline and Solomon, tributaries of the Smoky Hill River; the Big Blue, Delaware, and Wakarusa, which flow into the Kansas River; and the Marais des Cygnes, a tributary of the Missouri River.
Metropolitan areas by population
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