1. A river in northeastern Kansas; flows eastward to become a tributary of the Missouri River; Also called: Kansas River, Kaw River.
2. A state in midwestern United States; Also called: Sunflower State.
3. Town in Alabama (USA).
4. Town in Oklahoma (USA); zip code 74347.
5. Village in Illinois (USA); zip code 61933.
State in central US; nicknamed Sunflower State.
area 213,200 sq km/82,296 sq mi.
capital Topeka.
cities Kansas City, Wichita, Overland Park.
features Great Plains; Cimarron national grassland; Kansas and Arkansas rivers; Fort Scott national historic site (built 1840s); Fort Larned national historic site, a restored prairie fort built 1868 to protect travelers on the Santa Fe Trail; the Santa Fe Trail Center at Larned; Kansas City, with the Shawnee Methodist Mission (begun 1839 as a school to teach English to the Native Americans), and Mahaffie Farmstead Stagecoach Stop; Dodge City, once “cowboy capital of the world”, with the capitol (1866), and historic Ward-Meade Park; the Eisenhower Center, with his boyhood home, at Abilene; Wichita, known as the air capital of the world because of its importance as an aircraft production center; Pony Express station, Hanover; Wichita Cowtown, a frontier-era reproduction; Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center; it was the first state to prohibit alcohol (1880), and prohibition was not lifted until 1948.
industries wheat, cattle, coal, petroleum, natural gas, aircraft, minerals.

famous people Amelia Earhart; Dwight D Eisenhower; William Inge; Buster Keaton; Carry Nation; Charlie Parker.
history explored by Francisco de Coronado for Spain 1541 and La Salle for France 1682; ceded to the US 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase.
The first permanent settlements were forts Leavenworth 1827, Scott 1842, and Riley 1853, outposts to protect the Santa Fe and Oregon trails. In the 1850s it was the scene of bloody warfare between pro- and antislavery settlers. It became a state 1861. By 1872 two railroads had crossed Kansas, and such towns as Dodge City and Abilene filled with cowboys driving cattle from Texas. Hardy winter wheat was brought to the state by Russian Mennonites. Kansas was hard hit by the Great Depression and dust-bowl soil erosion of the 1930s, but aircraft, oil, and gas industries provided the basis for economic recovery and expansion. KS.