Kansas City

Sister cities

• Metz
• Guadalajara
• Seville
• Xi'an
• Arusha
• Freetown
• Hanover
• San Nicolás de los Garza
• Kurashiki
• Ramla
• Port Harcourt
• Tainan

History

The town of Kansas, Missouri, was incorporated on June 1, 1850, reincorporated and renamed "City of Kansas" on March 28, 1853, and renamed "Kansas City" in 1889. The Kansas City metropolitan area straddles the border between Missouri and Kansas at Kaw Point, and was considered a good place to settle. The Antioch Christian Church, Dr. James Compton House, and Woodneath are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In past centuries, the area's tribal inhabitants include the Hopewell tradition, Mississippian culture, Kansa, Osage, Otoe, and Missouri. The first documented European visitor to the eventual site of Kansas City was Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont, who was also the first European to explore the lower Missouri River. Criticized for his response to the Native American attack on Fort Détroit, he had deserted his post as fort commander and was avoiding French authorities. Bourgmont lived with a Native American wife in a village about east near Brunswick, Missouri, where he illegally traded furs. To clear his name, he wrote Exact Description of Louisiana, of Its Harbors, Lands and Rivers, and Names of the Indian Tribes That Occupy It, and the Commerce and Advantages to Be Derived Therefrom for the Establishment of a Colony in 1713 and The Route to Be Taken to Ascend the Missouri River in 1714. In the documents, he describes the junction of the "Grande Riv[ière] des Cansez" and Missouri River, as the first adoption of those names. French cartographer Guillaume Delisle used the descriptions to make the area's first reasonably accurate map. The Spanish took over the region in the Treaty of Paris in 1763, but were not to play a major role other than taxing and licensing Missouri River ship traffic. The French continued their fur trade under Spanish…

Geography

The city has an area of , of which, is land and is water. Bluffs overlook the rivers and river bottom areas. Kansas City proper is bowl-shaped and is surrounded to the north and south by glacier-carved limestone and bedrock cliffs. Kansas City is at the confluence between the Dakota and Minnesota ice lobes during the maximum late Independence glaciation of the Pleistocene epoch. The Kansas and Missouri rivers cut wide valleys into the terrain when the glaciers melted and drained. A partially filled spillway valley crosses the central city. This valley is an eastward continuation of the Turkey Creek Valley. It is the closest major city to the geographic center of the contiguous United States, or "Lower 48". Kansas City comprises more than 240 neighborhoods, some with histories as independent cities or as the sites of major events. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art opened its Euro-Style Bloch addition in 2007, and the Safdie-designed Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts opened in 2011. The Power and Light Building is influenced by the Art Deco style and sports a glowing sky beacon. The new world headquarters of H&R Block is a 20-story all-glass oval bathed in a soft green light. The four industrial artworks atop the support towers of the Kansas City Convention Center (Bartle Hall) were once the subject of ridicule, but now define the night skyline near the T-Mobile Center along with One Kansas City Place (Missouri's tallest office tower), the KCTV-Tower (Missouri's tallest freestanding structure) and the Liberty Memorial, a World War I memorial and museum that flaunts simulated flames and smoke billowing into the night skyline. It was designated as the National World War I Museum and Memorial in 2004 by the United States Congress. Kansas City is home to significant…

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  18,297
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  14,075
• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  13,616
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  13,353
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  12,393
• Downy Woodpecker

  Dryobates pubescens (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  11,869
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  11,861
• House Finch

  Haemorhous mexicanus (P.L.Statius Müller, 1776) · Aves
  11,324

Largest nearby schools

• TRUMAN HIGH
  High · INDEPENDENCE · 1,662 students · 18.5:1 ratio
• WILLIAM CHRISMAN HIGH
  High · INDEPENDENCE · 1,406 students · 16.9:1 ratio
• RAYTOWN SR. HIGH
  High · RAYTOWN · 1,365 students · 16.1:1 ratio
• EAST HIGH SCHOOL
  High · KANSAS CITY · 1,112 students · 14.3:1 ratio
• VAN HORN HIGH
  High · INDEPENDNCE · 1,047 students · 17.4:1 ratio
• LINCOLN COLLEGE PREP.
  High · KANSAS CITY · 897 students · 16:1 ratio
• CLIFFORD H. NOWLIN MIDDLE
  Middle · INDEPENDENCE · 875 students · 16.2:1 ratio
• GUADALUPE CENTERS ELEMENTARY
  Elementary · KANSAS CITY · 781 students · 13.2:1 ratio

Most recent

• M 3.5 — 2024-03-15
  2 km NE of Ferrelview, Missouri
• M 2.6 — 2018-07-20
  1 km WNW of Saint Joseph, Missouri
• M 3.1 — 2007-03-23
  5 km N of Nortonville, Kansas
• M 3.3 — 2005-05-18
  Missouri