Encyclopedia
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 wind."
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. In 1861 Kansas entered the Union as a
free state. After the
Civil War, the population of Kansas exploded as wave after wave of immigrants turned the desolate prairie into productive farmland. Today Kansas is one of the most productive agricultural states, leading the nation in
wheat production.
Geography
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.
Kansas is one of the six states located on the Frontier Strip.
Topography
The state, lying in the
great central plain of the United States, has a generally flat or undulating surface, and on a large scale is almost perfectly flat. Even so, the land displays a gradual slope up from east to west; its altitude above the sea ranges from 684
feet along the
Verdigris River at Coffeyville in Montgomery County, to 4,039 feet at Mount Sunflower, in Wallace County.
The
Missouri River forms nearly 75
miles 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 150 miles across the northeastern part of the state. The
Arkansas River, rising in
Colorado, flows with a tortuous course for nearly 500 miles across three-fourths of the state. It forms, with its tributaries , 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.
National parks and historic sites
Areas under the protection of the
National Park Service include:
Climate
Kansas contains three climate types, according to the Köppen climate classification: humid continental, semiarid steppe, and humid subtropical.
The eastern two-thirds of the state has a humid continental climate, with cold winters and hot summers. Most of the precipitation falls in the summer and spring.
The western one-third of the state has a semiarid
steppe climate. Summers are hot, and often very hot. Winters are cold in the northwest and cool to mild in the southwest. The region is semiarid, receiving on average only about 16
inches of precipitation per year.
Chinook winds in the winter can warm western Kansas all the way into the 80 degree Fahrenheit range.
The far south central and southeastern reaches of the state have a humid subtropical climate, with long, hot summers and short, mild winters and much more precipitation than the rest of the state.
Precipitation ranges from about 46 inches annually in the southeast of the state, to about 16 inches in the southwest.
Snowfall ranges from around 5 inches in the fringes of the south, to 35 inches in the far northwest. Frost free days range from more than 200 days in the south, to 130 days in the northwest.
Kansas is the 9th or 10th sunniest state in the country, depending on the source. The only state east of Kansas which is sunnier on average is Florida, coming in Sixth place. Arizona is No. 1, followed by California, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas, according to the National Weather Service. Western Kansas is as sunny as parts of California and Texas.
Global warming is predicted to have a destructive affect on Kansas:
- Wheat farming in Kansas, for example, would be profoundly affected by the loss of ice cover in the Arctic. According to a NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies computer model, Kansas would be 4 degrees warmer in the winter without Arctic ice, which normally creates cold air masses that frequently slide southward into the United States. Warmer winters are bad news for wheat farmers, who need freezing temperatures to grow winter wheat. And in summer, warmer days would rob Kansas soil of 10 percent of its moisture, drying out valuable cropland.
Hotter, dryer conditions in Kansas would approximate the conditions that led to the
dust bowl years in the 1930's, when the state was largely uninhabitable.
History
For millennia, the land that is presently Kansas was inhabited by
Native Americans.
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado was the first European to set foot in present-day Kansas, exploring the area in 1541. In 1803, most of Kansas was secured by the United States as part of the
Louisiana Purchase. Southwest Kansas, however, was still a part of Spain, Mexico, and the Republic of Texas until the conclusion of the
Mexican-American War. From 1812 to 1821, Kansas was part of the
Missouri Territory. The
Santa Fe Trail traversed Kansas from 1821 to 1880, transporting manufactured goods from
Missouri and
silver and furs from
Santa Fe, New Mexico. Wagon ruts from the trail are still visible today.
In 1827, Fort Leavenworth became the first permanent settlement of white Americans in the future state. The
Kansas-Nebraska Act became law on May 30, 1854 establishing the
U.S. territories of
Nebraska and Kansas.
Kansas Territory stretched all the way to the Continental Divide and included the sites of present-day
Denver,
Colorado Springs, and
Pueblo.
Some of the first Americans to settle in Kansas Territory were
abolitionists from
Massachusetts and other Free-Staters, who attempted to stop the spread of slavery from neighboring
Missouri. Directly presaging the
American Civil War, these forces collided, entering into skirmishes that earned the territory the name of
Bleeding Kansas. Kansas was admitted to the United States as a
free state on January 29, 1861, making it the 34th state to enter the Union. By that time the violence in Kansas had largely subsided. However, during the Civil War, on August 21, 1863,
William Quantrill led Quantrill's Raid into Lawrence, destroying much of the city and killing almost two hundred people.
After the Civil War, many veterans constructed homesteads in Kansas. Many
African Americans also looked to Kansas as the land of "John Brown" and led by men like Benjamin "Pap" Singleton began establishing black colonies in the state. At the same time, the Chisholm Trail was opened and the
Wild West era commenced in Kansas.
Wild Bill Hickok was a deputy marshal at
Fort Riley and a marshal at
Hays and
Abilene.
Dodge City was another wild cowboy town in the late
19th century. In one year alone, 8 million head of cattle from Texas boarded trains in Dodge City bound for the East, earning Dodge the nickname "Queen of the Cowtowns."
Bat Masterson and
Wyatt Earp were both lawmen in Dodge City. In part as a response to the violence perpetrated by cowboys, on February 19, 1881, Kansas became the first U.S. state to prohibit all
alcoholic beverages.
Demographics
As of 2005, Kansas has an estimated population of 2,744,687, which is an increase of 10,990, or 0.4%, from the prior year and an increase of 55,863, or 2.1%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 76,138 people and a decrease due to net migration of 19,541 people out of the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 38,222 people, and migration within the country produced a net loss of 57,763 people.
As of 2004, the population included 149,800 foreign-born , and an estimated 47,000 illegal aliens .
The largest reported ancestries in the state are:
German ,
Irish , English ,
American ,
French , and
Swedish .
Americans of British ancestry are common throughout Kansas, as are
German-Americans. People of German ancestry are especially strong in the northwest, people of British ancestry and descendants of white Americans from other states are especially strong in the southeast. Mexicans are present in the southwest and make up nearly half the population in certain counties. Many African Americans in Kansas are descended from the "Exodusters", newly freed blacks who fled the South for land in Kansas following the Civil War.
Rural flight
Kansas, as well as five other Midwest states , is feeling the brunt of falling populations. 89% of the total number of cities in those states have fewer than 3000 people; hundreds have fewer than 1000. There are more than 6,000
Ghost Towns in the state, according to Kansas historian Daniel Fitzgerald. Between 1996 and 2004, almost half a million people, nearly half with college degrees, left the six states.
"Rural flight" as it is called has led to offers of free land and tax breaks as enticements to newcomers.
Economy
The 2003 total gross state product of Kansas was US$93 billion, an increase of 4.3% over the prior year, but trailing the national average increase of 4.8%. Its per-capita income was US$29,438. The December 2003 unemployment rate was 4.9%. The agricultural outputs of the state are cattle, sheep, wheat, sorghum, soybeans, cotton, hogs, corn, and salt. The industrial outputs are transportation equipment, commercial and private aircraft, food processing, publishing, chemical products, machinery, apparel, petroleum and mining.
Kansas ranks 8th in U.S.
oil production. Production has experienced a steady, natural decline as it becomes increasingly difficult to extract oil over time. Since oil prices bottomed in 1999, oil production has remained fairly constant, with an average monthly rate of about 2.8 million barrels in 2004. The
recent higher prices have made
carbon dioxide sequestration and other oil recovery techniques more economical.
Kansas ranks 8th in U.S.
natural gas production. Production has steadily declined since the mid-1990’s with the depletion of the Hugoton
natural gas field—the state's largest field which extends into Oklahoma and Texas. In 2004, slower declines in the Hugoton gas fields and increased coalbed methane production contributed to a smaller overall decline. Average monthly production was over 32 billion cubic feet .
Kansas is the nation's second largest producer of beef cattle, behind only
Texas. Kansas is one of the most productive agricultural states, leading the nation in
wheat production.
Kansas has 3 income brackets for income tax calculation, ranging from 3.5% to 6.45%.
The state sales tax in Kansas is 5.3 percent. Various cities and counties in Kansas have an additional local sales tax. Except during the 2001 recession when monthly sales tax collections were flat, collections have trended higher as the economy has grown and two rate increases have been enacted. Total sales tax collections for 2003 amounted to $1.63 billion, compared to $805.3 million in 1990.
Revenue shortfalls resulting from lower than expected tax collections and slower growth in personal income following a 1998 permanent tax reduction has contributed to the substantial growth in the state's debt level as bonded debt increased from $1.16 billion in 1998 to $3.83 billion in 2006. Some increase in debt was expected as the state continues with its 10-year Comprehensive Transportation Program enacted in 1999. As of June 2004,
Moody's Investors Service ranked the state 14th for net tax-supported debt per capita. As a percentage of personal income, it was at 3.8%—above the median value of 2.5% for all rated states and having risen from a value of less than 1% in 1992. The state has a statutory requirement to maintain cash reserves of at least 7.5% of expenses at the end of each fiscal year.
Major employers in Kansas include the
Sprint Nextel Corporation ,
Embarq ,
Cessna ,
Learjet 
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