Abbreviated as KS on abbreviationfinder.org, Kansas is one of the states of the North American Confederation, almost in the center of this, the 13th for surface area (212,780 sq. Km., As much as northern and central Italy combined). The name comes from the Kansas River that flows through it from O. to E., dividing it almost in half. The territory, slightly undulating, with very wide and flared valleys, is inclined on the whole from NW. to SE. and crossed by the tributaries of the Missouri, which laps the northeastern corner. The maximum heights, towards the west, exceed 1000 m., The minimum, along the Missouri, 200; more than half of the state is above 600m. The landscape at the SW end is somewhat rough. (Ozark plateau), where a dense cloister of small sandstone hills rises, which continues into nearby Texas; however, most of the territory is flat and uniform, especially towards the east, where the prairie occupies a good third of the surface of the state, the rest falling within the region of the Gran Piani, also characterized by a barely sensitive slope. Only in the vicinity of the major rivers there are escarpments and terraces of a few tens of meters in height.
In harmony with these environmental conditions, the activity of the inhabitants is aimed, it can be said, half to agriculture (to E.), and the other half to livestock (to W). In the area close to the Mississippi corn prevails (average 38 million hl. Per year); towards the center, wheat (winter; average 50 million hl.); to O. the breeding, especially of pigs, cattle and horses. Sorghum, oats, barley, rye and potatoes are grown throughout the state; and goats and sheep are also raised in good numbers. On the other hand, forests are very scarce (5% of the total area).
Mineral resources, while not representing an essential element in the economy of the state, are far from negligible and also quite varied; worthy of mention: coal (Crawford, Cherokee, Leavenworth and Osage districts; 1927: 3.1 million tons), oil (Miami, Barbon, Wilson; 1924: 41.1 million barrels), lead (Galena ), salt, zinc, gypsum and natural gas. Industrial development is not comparable to that of many other states of the Confederation; however, in addition to food (milling, butter making), mechanical industries (foundries, machines and railway material) also flourish.
The population has gone from less than one million. in 1880, to 1,428,108 in 1890, 1,470,495 in 1900, 1,690,949 in 1910, 1,769,257 in 1920, and currently (cens. 1930) 1,880,999 inhabitants, thus becoming Kansas, in this respect , 24 ° among the States of the Confederation; 34 ° instead for the density (8.8 inhabitants per sq. Km), one of the weakest in the central areas. The population is then rather unevenly distributed, because it is mainly centralized in the eastern half of the state, where almost all the cities are also. A little less than 1 / 4 (29%, however, in 1910), lives in centers of more than 2500 ab. Negroes represent about 3% of the total; among those born abroad the Germans by far predominate; followed by the Swedes, the Russians, the English and the Irish.
The capital is Topeka, on Kansas, (pop. 64,000); the most populous cities: Kansas, at the confluence of Kansas with Missouri (122,000 inhab. in 1930;), and Wichita, on Arkansas (111,000 inhab.).
History
The Europeans who first traveled that part of the “buffalo country” which later became Kansas, were Francisco Coronado and the other Spanish adventurers who in 1541 went in search of the fabulous city of Cibala. The French and the Spaniards who vied for domination of the region did not fight with the Indians until 1803. It was then that most of the region was included in the Louisiana territory, ceded to the United States by Napoleon Bonaparte. During the next four decades the Kansas prairies were traversed by hunters, explorers, and merchants who traced the Santa Fé route, and by wagon trains following the Oregon route to the distant Pacific, but few of these emigrants made it there. they settled. In 1854 the Kansas Nebraska Act revoked the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Purchase, north of parallel 36 ° 30 ′, and provided for the organization of the Kansas territory on the basis of people’s sovereignty, for which the territorial settlers were authorized to resolve by itself the issues concerning slavery. From that moment a large influx of people began in Kansas, and a bitter struggle for domination of the region began between the states that supported freedom and those that supported slavery.
Only in January 1861 did Congress recognize the preponderance of the population from the states of freedom and admitted Kansas into the Confederacy, with a constitution prohibiting slavery. The new state sided with the Washington government during the civil war (1861-1865). After the troubled years of the war, numerous Indian incursions into the western counties followed, but the federal government pushed their tribes back into reserved territories beyond the state borders.
Since its admission to the United States, Kansas was generally republican. During the agrarian unrest due to the high cost of transport and low grain prices, the Democrats had formed a block with the People’s Party several times, thus bringing the populists to power in the state from 1892 to 1894 and from 1896 to 1898. When the Republican party underwent a split for the uprising of progressives under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, Kansas voted for the Democratic party. Four years later he supported Woodrow Wilson’s policy. But then Kansas returned to its first Republican orientation, despite the discontent of its agrarian population over Congressional decrees aimed at relieving farmers ‘ difficulties.. In 1930 this orientation was evident in the election of a Democrat for governor.
Topeka
According to countryaah.com, Topeka is a city of the USA (123,446 residents in 2008), and capital of the state of Kansas, on the Kansas River, at 270 m asl, with a markedly continental climate. It is an important commercial and industrial center (food and metalworking). It was founded in 1854.
