Portal:Kansas/Cities

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Cities

Portal:Kansas/Cities/1

Manhattan is a city located in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Kansas at the junction of the Kansas River and Big Blue River. As of the July 2005 census estimate, its population was 49,462, making it the eighth-largest city in Kansas. Manhattan is the county seat of Riley County. A small part of the town extends into Pottawatomie County. It is the principal town within the Manhattan, Kansas Micropolitan Statistical Area.

Nicknamed The Little Apple in 1977 as a play on New York City's "Big Apple," it is most well known for being the home of Kansas State University. Eight miles (13 km) west of the town is Fort Riley, a United States Army post. In 2007, CNN and Money magazine rated Manhattan as one of the ten best places in America to retire young.



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Lawrence is a college town, river city and the seat of Douglas County, Kansas, United States, 41 miles (66 km) west of Kansas City, along the banks of both the Kansas (Kaw) and Wakarusa Rivers. It is considered governmentally independent and is the principal city within the Lawrence, Kansas, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Douglas County. As of the 2000 census, the city had a population of 80,098, making it the sixth largest city in Kansas. 2006 estimates place the city's population at 89,110. Lawrence is the home of the University of Kansas and Haskell Indian Nations University.

Lawrence was founded in 1854 for the New England Emigrant Aid Company by Charles Robinson, who later served as governor of Kansas. The city was named after Amos Adams Lawrence, a prominent politician and antislavery partisan and the son of famed philanthropist Amos Lawrence. Lawrence holds the distinctions of having been the site of operation for the state's first railroad in 1871 and the city where the state's first telephone was installed in 1877. In 1989, when the Free State Brewing Co. opened in Lawrence, it was the first legal brewery in Kansas in more than 100 years. The restaurant is in a renovated inter-urban trolley station in downtown Lawrence. The city is home to the state's only hydro-electric plant.



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Greensburg is a city in central Kiowa County, located in Southwest Kansas, in the Central United States. The population was 1,574 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat and most populous city of Kiowa County. Greensburg is also home to the world's largest hand-dug well.

On May 4, 2007, Greensburg was devastated by an EF5 tornado that traveled rapidly through the area, leveling at least 95 percent of the city and killing 11 people. The tornado was estimated to be 1.7 miles (2.7 km) in width and traveled for nearly 22 miles (35 km). Ninety-five percent of the city was confirmed to be destroyed, with the other five percent being severely damaged. The National Weather Service estimated winds of the tornado to reach 205 mph (330 km/h). This was the first tornado to be rated EF5 since the update of the Fujita scale. The tornado had caused EF5 damage to at least one well-built home in Greensburg, and also is the first "5" classification since May 3, 1999, when an F5 tornado ripped through Moore, Oklahoma, as part of the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak.

Greensburg was named for D. R. "Cannonball" Green, who owned a stagecoach company and who helped to form the city.



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Topeka (Kansa: Tó Ppí Kˀé) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is situated along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, located in northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. The population was 122,377 at the 2000 census, and it was estimated to be 122,647 in the 2007 census. The Topeka Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Shawnee, Jackson, Jefferson, Osage, and Wabaunsee counties, had an estimated population of 226,268 in the year 2003. Three ships of the US Navy have been named USS Topeka in honor of the city.

In the 1840s, wagon trains made their way west from Independence, Missouri, on a 2,000 miles (3,000 km) journey following what would come to be known as the Oregon Trail. In the early 1850s, traffic along the Oregon Trail was supplemented by trade on a new military road stretching from Fort Leavenworth through Topeka to the newly-established Fort Riley. After a decade of Bleeding Kansas abolitionist and pro-slavery conflict, the Kansas territory was admitted to the Union in 1861 as the 34th state. Topeka was finally chosen as the capital, with Dr. Charles Robinson as the first governor. In 1862, Cyrus K. Holliday donated a tract of land to the state for the construction of a state capitol. Construction of the Kansas State Capitol began in 1866. It would take 37 years to build the capitol, first the east wing, and then the west wing, and finally the central building, using Kansas limestone. Home to the first African-American kindergarten west of the Mississippi River, Topeka became the home of Linda Brown, the named plaintiff in Brown v. Board of Education which was the case responsible for eliminating the standard of "separate but equal", and requiring racial integration in American public schools.



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Overland Park (OH-vər-lend PARK) is a city in Johnson County, Kansas, United States, and the second-most populous city in the state of Kansas. It is one of four principal cities in the Kansas City metropolitan area and the most populous suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 197,238. (Full article...)