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The State of Kansas is a Midwestern state in the central region of the United States of America, an area often referred to as the American Heartland or America's Breadbasket referring to the state's enormous wheat-growing agribusiness. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa tribe, who inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean people of the wind or people of the south wind", although this was probably not the term's original meaning. Residents of Kansas are called Kansans.

The geographic center of the 48 contiguous states is located in Smith County near Lebanon, Kansas.

Kansas was admitted to the United States as a free state on January 29, 1861, making it the 34th state to enter the Union. By that time the violence in Kansas had largely subsided. However, during the Civil War, on August 21, 1863, William Quantrill led several hundred men on a raid into Lawrence, destroying much of the city and killing nearly two hundred people. Until the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Quantrill's raid was the single bloodiest act of domestic terrorism in America.

Kansas Counties

Reno County