The state of Kansas is situated in the central part of the United States of America and is a Midwestern state. This area is usually known as the American Heartland. The state is named after the Kansas River. This river flows through the state. The river itself was named after a tribe which used to live in the area and was known as the Kansa tribe. The name of the tribe is thought to mean the people of the south wind, or the people of the wind. But there is a possibility that this is not what the original meaning of the word was. The people who live in Kansas are known as Kansans.

In early times it was the nomadic Native Americans who used to live here in large numbers. These tribes used to hunt bison. European Americans first came to the region and started settling here in the 1830s. When the slavery issue resulted in political wars, the speed at which the settlements were created increased. The population increase further received a boom when the immigrants coming to the state converted the prairie into farmland which was highly productive. A large number of crops are produced here nowadays, and Kansas is the leading nation with respect to sunflower and wheat production.

The state of Kansas is surrounded by Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Colorado on the north, east, south, and west respectively. There are a total of one hundred and five counties in the state as well as six hundred and twenty eight cities. The state is situated at an equal distance from both the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean.

There are three different climate types which are dominant in the state of Kansas. They are semi arid steppe, humid continental, and humid subtropical. The humid continental climate is present in two thirds of the eastern part of the state, and the summers here are hot and the winters cold.