Kansas

From about AD 1200 to 1500 a thriving agricultural society existed along the Republican and Big Blue rivers in what is now Kansas; by the 1500s most permanent settlements had been abandoned in favour of migratory camps.⁠[1]

Before European settlement the region was occupied by the Kansa, Osage, Pawnee, and Wichita peoples.⁠[2]

In 1541 Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led a party of Spanish explorers north from Mexico in search of the fabled Seven Golden Cities of Cíbola, becoming the first Europeans to enter what is now Kansas.⁠[1][3]

In 1682 René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, claimed the region for France. During the 18th century French traders carried on a fur trade with the local Kansa, and Spain briefly claimed Kansas in the early 18th century.⁠[1]

Through the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 the United States acquired all of present-day Kansas except its southwestern corner.⁠[3][2]

In 1806 the explorer Zebulon Montgomery Pike passed through Kansas and described it as the “Great American Desert.”⁠[1]

Fort Leavenworth dates from 1827 and is now home to the Command and General Staff College. Leavenworth is the oldest city in Kansas.⁠[4][5]

From 1830 to 1854 Kansas lay within an area designated as Indian Territory for relocated Native American tribes.⁠[1]

Fort Riley was established in 1853, became an infantry-training centre in the 20th century, and is home to the 1st Infantry Division.⁠[4]

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 created Kansas Territory and Nebraska Territory and opened them to white settlement, leaving the question of slavery to the residents.⁠[2][3]

The territorial period was marked by unrest, election fraud, and frequent changes of the capital’s location, and at one point two governments operated at once; four constitutional conventions were held: Topeka (1855), Lecompton (1857), Leavenworth (1858), and Wyandotte (1859).⁠[6]

On October 23, 1855, free-state delegates met in convention at Topeka; on December 15, 1855, voters approved the constitution 1,731 to 46, with the proslavery party not voting. Congress rejected it, but the Topeka movement remained active for about three more years.⁠[6][7]

In 1856 Southern guerrillas sacked Lawrence, a free-state stronghold. In retaliation John Brown and his followers killed five proslavery settlers along Pottawatomie Creek near Lane, an incident known as the Pottawatomie Massacre.⁠[1][3]

The U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Dred Scott decision on March 6, 1857; slavery remained legal in Kansas Territory until statehood.⁠[6]

The proslavery legislature authorized the Lecompton convention in 1857, which met from October 19 to November 8. In the vote of December 21 the “constitution with slavery” option won 6,226 to 569, as free-state voters boycotted the poll. Free-state candidates won the territorial legislative elections in the fall of 1857.⁠[7][6]

Voters rejected the Lecompton Constitution on January 4, 1858, and again on August 2, 1858, when it received 1,926 votes for and 11,812 against. Delegates to the Leavenworth convention were elected on March 9, 1858, and met at Leavenworth on March 25; voters ratified that constitution on May 18, but the effort behind it ended with the defeat of the Lecompton document in August.⁠[7][6]

The territorial legislature of 1859 approved a fourth and final constitutional convention. Fifty-two delegates elected in early June, 35 Republicans and 17 Democrats, met at Wyandotte on July 5.⁠[8]

The convention fixed the western boundary at 102 degrees west longitude, giving Kansas its present rectangular shape; earlier constitutions had extended the western boundary to the Continental Divide, taking in the Pikes Peak gold fields. The eastern, southern, and northern boundaries it set match the present state lines.⁠[8]

The constitution limited the vote to white men aged 21 and older, excluding women, Black people, and American Indians; women could vote in school district elections and own property, provisions credited in part to Clarina Nichols.⁠[8]

The free-state constitution was adopted and signed on July 29, 1859; all 17 Democratic delegates refused to sign. On October 4 voters ratified it 10,421 to 5,530. In the election of state officers on December 6, Charles Robinson defeated territorial governor Samuel Medary, and Republicans won 86 of the 100 legislative seats.⁠[8]

A severe drought and famine struck Kansas in late 1859 and 1860.⁠[7]

A bill to admit Kansas was introduced in the House on February 12, 1860, and within two months the House voted 134 to 73 to admit Kansas under the Wyandotte Constitution; William H. Seward introduced a Senate bill on February 21, but it was postponed to the next session.⁠[8]

On January 21, 1861, after the last six Southern senators withdrew, the Senate passed the Kansas bill 36 to 16 that day; the House passed the amended bill on January 28, and President James Buchanan then signed it into law.⁠[8][9]

When the news reached Kansas by telegraph, the Leavenworth Conservative issued an extra at about 4 a.m. on January 29; Kansas commemorates the day as Kansas Day.⁠[9][10]

In 1861 the capital was located at Topeka by popular election, Topeka outpolling nearby Lawrence by some 2,700 votes. The first Kansas State Legislature convened on March 26, 1861.⁠[11][8]

During the Civil War about two-thirds of Kansas men of military age enlisted in the Union army, and nearly 8,500 were killed or wounded, the highest per capita casualty rate of any Union state.⁠[12]

Sporadic fighting between settlers and Native Americans occurred before and after the Civil War. Under a peace treaty signed in 1867 the Indians agreed to sell their land, and the United States promised them homes in present-day Oklahoma along with money, food, and clothing; Congress did not honour the treaty, and groups returning found their land occupied by settlers.⁠[12][1]

Railroads reached Kansas in the late 1860s and the 1870s and gave rise to cow towns; TexasTexasTexas is a U.S. state in the south-central United States, with its capital at Austin and its largest city Houston. It was admitted to the Union on December 29, 1845, as the 28th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 29,145,505 residents.Open the full entry cattlemen drove herds north to Caldwell, Wichita, Dodge City, Abilene, and other towns, and the cow-town era lasted less than a decade.⁠[12]

In 1874 Volga Germans, many of them Mennonites, arrived in Kansas bringing Turkey Red wheat seed, which became the basis of the state’s winter wheat production.⁠[12]

In the 1870s African Americans, mostly from the Deep South, came to Kansas in number and founded farming settlements such as Nicodemus in the northwest of the state; freed slaves who migrated from the South in the late 1870s were known as “exodusters.”⁠[5][3]

By about 1890 most of the land in Kansas had been occupied, and agriculture dominated the economy.⁠[12]

Wartime demand for food during World War I led to more plowing of the prairie, which contributed directly to the dust storms that devastated the state in the 1930s. Amid the Dust Bowl and low farm prices, Kansas lost almost 80,000 residents between 1930 and 1940.⁠[1][3]

During and after World War II aircraft production in Wichita expanded, drawing workers from Oklahoma and Arkansas; many of the military personnel and aircraft workers who arrived during the war stayed in Kansas.⁠[12][5]

The landmark civil rights case BrownBrown UniversityBrown University is a private nonprofit research university in Providence, Rhode Island, and a member of the Ivy League. Chartered by Rhode Island's colonial legislature in 1764, it is known for its undergraduate Open Curriculum, which has no common required core. Christina H. Paxson, president since July 2012, announced on August 3, 2026, that the 2026–27 academic year would be her last in office. As of October 1, 2026, the search for Brown's 20th president remained underway.Open the full entry v. Board of Education of Topeka began in Topeka in 1951; the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous 1954 decision effectively ended legal racial segregation in public schools.⁠[3]

Dwight D. Eisenhower, who grew up in Abilene, was elected the 34th president of the United States in 1952 and re-elected in 1956. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene holds the papers and memorabilia of his presidency and military career.⁠[3][1]

A constitutional amendment adopted in 1958 established a right-to-work law prohibiting compulsory union membership.⁠[4]

Overland Park, incorporated in 1960, had surpassed Kansas City, Kansas, in population by the end of the 20th century.⁠[5]

On April 26, 2021, the U.S. Census Bureau released the apportionment results of the 2020 census. Kansas was apportioned 4 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, the same number as after the 2010 census, giving it 6 electoral votes in the 2024 and 2028 presidential elections.⁠[13][14][15]

Kansas lies amid the westward-rising landscape of the Great Plains.⁠[16]

In the Census Bureau’s state area measurements (boundaries as of January 1, 2010), Kansas has a total area of 82,278 square miles (213,100 square kilometres), of which 81,759 square miles (211,754 square kilometres) is land and 520 square miles (1,346 square kilometres) is water, all of it inland water.⁠[17]

The highest point is Mount Sunflower in Wallace County on the western border, at 4,039 feet (1,231 metres); the land slopes down toward the southeast to a low of 680 feet (210 metres) along the Verdigris River at the Oklahoma line. The northern half of the state is drained by the Kansas (Kaw) River, formed in Geary County by the Republican and Smoky Hill rivers; the Arkansas is the chief river of southern Kansas, and the Missouri River forms the northeastern boundary. The geodetic center of North America lies in Osborne County.⁠[3]

The current state constitution is the Wyandotte Constitution drafted in 1859. It consists of a Bill of Rights, an Ordinance and Preamble, Articles 1 through 15, a Schedule and Resolutions, and a list of amendments; Article 2 covers the legislature, Article 3 the judiciary, Article 10 legislative apportionment, and Article 14 amendment and revision.⁠[18]

The legislature is bicameral, with 125 representatives serving two-year terms and 40 senators serving four-year terms. The Supreme Court has seven justices, appointed by the governor from a panel submitted by a nominating commission and subject to retention by voters. The state has 105 counties and 31 judicial districts.⁠[4]

As of November 2026 the governor is Laura Kelly. She took office on January 14, 2019, as the 48th governor of Kansas, and was later sworn in for a second term.⁠[19]

The 2010 census (April 1, 2010) counted 2,853,118 people in Kansas. The Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 estimate put the population at 2,977,220 on July 1, 2025, up 1.3% from the April 1, 2020, estimates base of 2,937,986; population density in 2020 was 35.9 people per square mile.⁠[20]

In American Community Survey data for 2020–2024, 7.4% of residents were foreign-born, 35.6% of people aged 25 and older held a bachelor’s degree or higher, and median household income was $74,275 (in 2024 dollars).⁠[20]

Early settlers were mainly antislavery New Englanders of British ancestry; after the Civil War many Central Europeans came to lay railroad track and then took up free land, and small communities of Russian, Bohemian, German, and Scandinavian ancestry remain. The Wichita metropolitan area holds more than one-fifth of the state’s population. The state is mainly Protestant, with large Methodist, Baptist, and Lutheran communities, and Roman Catholics account for nearly all other adherents.⁠[5]

Kansas’s nominal GDP (all industry total, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data) in 2025 was $232,106.7 million.⁠[21]

Kansas leads the states in wheat and sorghum grain production, ranks high in wild hay, beef, and hogs, and remains the leading wheat-milling state. Wichita ranks first in the world in general-aviation aircraft production and is also a major centre of military aircraft manufacturing. Kansas is one of the leading mineral-producing states and leads the country in helium production, while oil and natural gas production has declined. McConnell Air Force Base is in Wichita.⁠[4]

In transport, the Kansas Turnpike is the state’s only toll road, running from Kansas City to the Oklahoma line south of Wichita, and the state has more than 350 public and private airports.⁠[4]

Kansas has six public universities: the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Emporia State University (1863), Kansas State University in Manhattan (1863, the state’s first land-grant college), Fort Hays State University (1902), Pittsburg State University (1903), and Wichita State University in Wichita (1895). Lawrence is home to the state’s largest university.⁠[3][5]

Topeka and Wichita have symphony orchestras, and the state-funded Kansas Arts Commission was formed in the mid-1960s. The WizardRyan HallRyan Hall is an American Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and mixed martial artist nicknamed “The Wizard” who won bronze in the under-66kg division of the 2009 ADCC World Championship, won season 22 of The Ultimate Fighter in 2015 and submitted B.J. Penn with a heel hook in the UFC; in 2008 he founded the Fifty/50 academy in Falls Church, Virginia.Open the full entry of Oz Museum in Wamego holds memorabilia related to L. Frank Baum’s books and their adaptations, and Lindsborg holds the biennial Svensk Hyllningsfest honouring its Swedish pioneers. Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve lies in the Flint Hills near Emporia, and the U.S. Forest Service manages Cimarron National Grassland.⁠[1]

The state’s name derives from that of the Kansa, or Kaw, whose name comes from a Siouan-language phrase meaning “people of the south wind.”⁠[11]

Because wild sunflowers grow profusely in the state, Kansas is nicknamed the Sunflower State; other nicknames are the Squatter State and the Cyclone State. Its people are often called Jayhawkers, from a Civil War term for Kansas troops.⁠[3]

The state motto is the Latin “Ad Astra per Aspera,” which appears on the state seal adopted on May 25, 1861. The state flag was established in 1927, showing the state seal with a sunflower above it on a gold and light blue bar; the word “KANSAS” was added in 1961.⁠[22]

The state flower is the wild native sunflower (1903), the state bird the western meadowlark (1937), the state tree the cottonwood (1937), the state animal the American buffalo (1955) and the state song “Home on the Range” (1947).⁠[22]

State of Kansas: Official website: https://portal.kansas.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[23]

Governor Laura Kelly: Official website: https://www.governor.ks.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[23]

Kansas Legislature: Official website: https://www.kslegislature.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[24][23]

Kansas Secretary of State: Official website: https://kssos.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[18]

Kansas Historical Society: Official website: https://www.kansashistory.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]