What You Should Know About Kansas Kansas is a federal state in the Midwest of the United States of America and is located in the geographic center of North America. The name comes from the word Sioux Kansas Kansa, which means "people of the south wind." Topeka is the capital and largest city is Wichita. It was home to many Native Americans who hunted there the American bison. The state was settled by white Americans since 1850.

Kansas is bordered to the north by the State of Nebraska, on the east by the Missouri River to the south with Oklahoma, and west by Colorado. It is equidistant from the two oceans. The geodetic center of North America is located in Osborne County. Kansas is made up of 105 counties and is one of the states that are part of the so-called Frontier Strip, i.e. the series of six states from north to south, from North Dakota to Texas, with their eastern border form a continuous line ideally separates the United States in two: east and west (west).

The Kansas lies almost entirely in the Great Plains region resulting so flat, at most, slightly wavy. But in fact, from east to west, although it gradually reaches the vertical drop exceeds that should not be neglected if you think that the 208 m above sea level Montgomery County to go through the 1,231 m Mount Sunflower in Wallace County, near the city of Boulder (Colorado).

The Missouri River forms the border north-east of the state for about 120 km. The Kansas River which is born from the union of the Smoky Hill and Republican rivers joins the Missouri at Kansas City after a run of 274 km in the north-eastern state. The Arkansas River is born in the State of Colorado and through a circuitous route (800 km) three quarters of the state. With a network of tributaries (including the Little Arkansas, Cimarron, Verdigris, and the Nesoho) has a catchment area that collects water from all over the southern half of the state.

Kansas has three types of climate according to Köppen climate classification: humid continental, semi-arid and humid subtropical.

Two-thirds of the eastern regions of the state have a humid continental or semi-continental winter’s cold and summers are hot and very muggy. Most of the precipitation takes place in spring and summer.

A third of the western regions of the state have a semi-arid climate. Summers are hot, often very hot and alternating long periods of dry weather and sunny with short transit disturbed, often characterized by violent demonstrations storm. The winters are hard, with nighttime lows very low and wide daily temperature range, the sky is usually clear and sunny for most of the cold season. The region is semi-arid and falls in a year on average only 40 cm of precipitation.

The southern and south-eastern regions of the state have a humid subtropical climate with long summers and short winters and very hot and moderately cold, although still less stringent than in the North of the State (the isotherm of 2 ° C in January touches the southern border with Oklahoma); precipitation in this area are also higher than in the northern and western territories.

Kansas is the ninth (according to some sources, the tenth) was sunny most of the U.S. The only state with more sunny days is the Florida east. In particular, the Western Kansas is as sunny as California and Texas. However, the Kansas is the subject, especially in the spring, frequent and violent storms

that often arise or become tornadoes. There are on the average 50 tornadoes affecting the Kansas in a year.