Kansas map

Where Kansas is

Kansas is in the centre of the contiguous US, on the Great Plains. It is about 410 miles east to west and 210 miles north to south — a rectangle except for the northeast corner, where the Missouri River cuts it off. Nebraska lies to the north, Missouri to the east, Oklahoma to the south and Colorado to the west. Wichita is in the south-central part of the state on the Arkansas River; Topeka, Lawrence and the Kansas suburbs of Kansas City are in the northeast along the Kansas River. The land rises steadily from about 700 feet in the southeast to over 4,000 feet at the Colorado line.

Major cities

Geography

• Mount Sunflower — 4,039 feet, the highest point, on the High Plains a half-mile from the Colorado border; it is only a gentle rise in a wheat field.
• Kansas (Kaw) River — formed at Junction City by the Republican and Smoky Hill rivers, it flows 170 miles east through Topeka and Lawrence to the Missouri at Kansas City.
• Arkansas River — enters from Colorado, crosses the southwest and south past Dodge City, Great Bend and Wichita, then leaves for Oklahoma. See the Arkansas River map.
• Flint Hills — a band of rocky tallgrass prairie running north–south through the east-central part of the state, the largest remaining tallgrass prairie in North America.
• High Plains — the flat, dry west, rising toward Colorado, underlain by the Ogallala Aquifer. See the Great Plains map.
• Lowest point — 679 feet on the Verdigris River at the Oklahoma line in the southeast; Milford Lake near Junction City is the largest reservoir.
• Time zones — Kansas is on Central time except four counties on the Colorado line (Sherman, Wallace, Greeley and Hamilton), which use Mountain time.

Borders

Three of Kansas's borders are surveyed lines: the 40th parallel with Nebraska, the 37th parallel with Oklahoma, and a meridian near 102°03′W with Colorado, all fixed by the 1854 Kansas–Nebraska Act and the 1861 statehood act, which cut off the territory's western section to form part of Colorado. The Missouri border is natural in the northeast, where the Missouri River runs from the Nebraska corner south-east to Kansas City, and then a straight meridian south from the mouth of the Kansas River to the Oklahoma line.

Regions of Kansas

Northeast Kansas (the Kansas City suburbs of Johnson County, Topeka, Lawrence, Leavenworth), the Flint Hills (Manhattan, Emporia), South Central Kansas (Wichita, Hutchinson), Southeast Kansas (Pittsburg, the old coal country), and Western Kansas or the High Plains (Salina, Hays, Dodge City, Garden City, Goodland).

Related maps

• Kansas county map — all 105 counties with seats.
• Blank Kansas map — outline for printing.
• Printable Kansas map.
• Topeka — the capital on the Kansas River, chosen in 1861.
• Neighbors: Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, Colorado.
• Region: Midwest · West North Central · Great Plains.
• Time zones: Central and Mountain (four western counties).
• Geography: Great Plains, Arkansas River, Missouri River.