Kansas City metropolitan area
The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With 8,472 square miles (21,940 km2) and a population of more than 2.2 million people, it is the second-largest metropolitan area centered in Missouri (after Greater St. Louis) and is the largest metropolitan area in Kansas, though Wichita is the largest metropolitan area centered in Kansas.[2] Alongside Kansas City, Missouri, these are the suburbs with populations above 100,000: Overland Park, Kansas; Kansas City, Kansas; Olathe, Kansas; Independence, Missouri; and Lee's Summit, Missouri.
"Kansas City" redirects here. For the city in Missouri, see Kansas City, Missouri. For the city in Kansas, see Kansas City, Kansas. For other uses, see Kansas City (disambiguation).
Kansas City metropolitan area
8,472 sq mi (21,940 km2)
1,1601 ft (353.51 m)
6901 ft (210.31 m)
2,192,035
260.0/sq mi (100.4/km2)
$169.5 billion (2022)
Business enterprises and employers include Cerner Corporation (the largest, with almost 10,000 local employees and about 20,000 global employees), AT&T, BNSF Railway, GEICO, Asurion, T-Mobile (formerly Sprint), Black & Veatch, AMC Theatres, Citigroup, Garmin, Hallmark Cards, Waddell & Reed, H&R Block, General Motors, Honeywell, the Ford Kansas City Assembly Plant, The Kansas City Star, Bayer, Children's Mercy Hospital, Truman Medical Center-Hospital Hill, and Andrews McMeel Universal (representing Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, and Doonesbury). Shopping centers include City Market, Crown Center, Country Club Plaza, Independence Center, Legends Outlets Kansas City, Oak Park Mall, Ward Parkway Center, and Zona Rosa.
Cultural attractions include the American Jazz Museum, the Kansas City Symphony, Kansas City Union Station, the National World War I Museum, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, the National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Arabia Steamboat Museum, Uptown Theater, Midland Theatre, the Kansas City Zoo, Swope Park (featuring Starlight Theater), Sandstone Amphitheater, the Kansas City Renaissance Festival, Worlds of Fun, Oceans of Fun, and several casinos. Major league sports franchises include the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs, the MLB's Kansas City Royals, and the MLS's Sporting Kansas City. The Kansas Speedway is owned by NASCAR.
Historic features include the confluence of the eastern endpoints of the California, Santa Fe, and Oregon Trails in Independence; the Harry S. Truman Historic District; and the neighborhoods of Westport, 18th and Vine, and Pendleton Heights. Historic cultural origins include KC styles of jazz, vaudeville theater, barbecue, and steak.
Economy[edit]
As of 2019, Missouri accounted for 56% of employment and Kansas accounted for 44% of employment. From 2018 to 2019 Kansas added 13,000 jobs and Missouri added 6,500 jobs. Kansas side employment grew by 2.7% and Missouri side employment grew by 1.1%; job growth in Kansas was more than double that in Missouri. Professional and business employment growth was due entirely to a gain of 5,200 jobs in the Kansas portion of the metro area.[23]
In 2015, the metropolitan area accounted for 40.9% of the total GDP in the state of Kansas and 22.7% of the total GDP in the state of Missouri.[24]
Transportation[edit]
Highways[edit]
The Kansas City metropolitan area has more freeway lane miles per capita than any other large metropolitan area in the United States. This is 27% more than the second-place Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, 50% more than the average American metro area, and nearly 75% more than the large metro area with the least in Las Vegas.[25]
The architecture of Kansas City, Missouri, and the metropolitan area includes major works by many of the world's most distinguished architects and firms, including McKim, Mead and White; Jarvis Hunt; Wight and Wight; Graham, Anderson, Probst and White; Hoit, Price & Barnes; Frank Lloyd Wright; the Office of Mies van der Rohe; Barry Byrne; Edward Larrabee Barnes; Harry Weese; and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
Top 5 largest colleges by total enrollment (within the MSA)[34]
List of institutions (including those in the CSA):
Libraries[edit]
The metro public library systems include Kansas City Public Library (Missouri), Mid-Continent Public Library, Kansas City, Kansas Public Library, and Johnson County Library. Private libraries include the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum and the Linda Hall Library.
Media[edit]
Print[edit]
The Kansas City Star is the metropolitan area's major daily newspaper. The McClatchy Company, which owns The Star, also owns two suburban weeklies: Lee's Summit Journal and Olathe Journal.
The Kansas City Kansan serves Wyandotte County, having moved from print to an online format in 2009. Additional weekly papers in the metropolitan area include the Liberty Tribune, Sun Newspapers of Johnson County, The Examiner in Independence and eastern Jackson County, The Pitch, and the Kansas-Missouri Sentinel. The faith-based newspapers are The Metro Voice Christian Newspaper and the Jewish Chronicle. Dos Mundos is a bilingual newspaper with articles in Spanish and English, and Mi Raza magazine is the area's only weekly Hispanic publication printed in Spanish. The Kansas City Call is an African American weekly newspaper.
The USDA provides estimates of the number of trees by county in the Kansas City metropolitan area.[39]
The five most common species in the region's urban and rural forest were American elm (28.9%), northern hackberry (14.0%), Osage-orange (7.2%), honeylocust (6.7%), and eastern redcedar (5.0%).
Notable people[edit]
Many notable people through history were born in, or moved to, what is now the Kansas City metropolitan area.
The list from Kansas City, Missouri includes these: cartoonists Walt Disney, Friz Freleng, and Ub Iwerks; musicians Count Basie, Melissa Etheridge, and Eminem; Representative Emanuel Cleaver and historical city boss Tom Pendergast; actors Ellie Kemper, Don Cheadle, and Jason Sudeikis; reporter Walter Cronkite; pilot Amelia Earhart; and writer Ernest Hemingway. The list from Kansas City, Kansas includes actors Eric Stonestreet, Scott Foley, and Tuc Watkins; Kermit the Frog puppeteer Matt Vogel; West Side Story cinematographer Daniel L. Fapp; Marvel Comics writer Jason Aaron; sculptor and pioneering black pilot Ed Dwight Jr.; Negro leagues player Ed Dwight Sr.; and mass murderer Richard Hickock.
The list from Independence, Missouri includes President Harry S. Truman, Guns N' Roses keyboardist Chris Pitman, eSports player Jonathan Wendel, actor Arliss Howard, Devo co-founder Bob Lewis, self-freed slave and Oregon Trail pioneer Hiram Young, Pulitzer-winning historian David McCullough, actor Ginger Rogers, rapper Tech N9ne, fantasy novelist Margaret Weis, television series creator Paul Henning, and black female Civil War soldier Cathay Williams.
From Overland Park, Kansas, this includes film directors Michael Almereyda (Hamlet) and Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw), actors Rob Riggle and Tom Kane, economist and writer Michael R. Strain, and eSports player Johnathan Wendel. From Lenexa, Kansas, this includes actors Paul Rudd and Jason Wiles, gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok, and autism researcher William Shaw. From Olathe, Kansas, this includes George Washington Carver. From Lee's Summit, this includes Bob, Cole, Jim, and John of the James–Younger Gang.