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Note: Alaska and Hawaii are shown out of
position for reference only and are not to scale.
Blank
Kansas State Outline Map
Kansas is bordered by Nebraska
on the north; Missouri on
the east; Oklahoma on the
south; and Colorado on the
west. The state is divided up into
105 counties
with 628 cities.
It is located equidistant
from the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans. The
geographic center of the 48 contiguous states is
located in Smith
County near Lebanon.
The geodetic center
of North America was located in
Osborne County
until 1983. This spot was until then used as the
central reference point for all maps of North
America produced by the U.S. government. The
geographic center of Kansas is located in
Barton County.
Kansas is also one of the six states located on the
Frontier Strip and one
of several within Tornado
Alley.
Topography
The western
two thirds of the state, lying in the
great central plain of the
United States, has a generally flat or undulating surface,
and on a large scale appears almost perfectly flat. However,
the eastern third is more hilly and forested. The land
displays a gradual slope up from east to west; its altitude
above the sea ranges from 684
feet (208 m) along the
Verdigris River at
Coffeyville in
Montgomery County,
to 4039 feet (1,231 m) at Mount
Sunflower, one half mile from the Colorado border, in
Wallace County.
The
Missouri River forms nearly 75
miles (120 km) of the state's
northeastern boundary. The Kansas
River (locally known as the Kaw), formed by the junction
of the Smoky Hill and
Republican rivers at
appropriately-named
Junction City, joins the Missouri at
Kansas City, after a
course of 170 miles (274 km) across the northeastern part of
the state. The Arkansas River,
rising in Colorado, flows with a
bending course for nearly 500 miles (800 km) across the
western and southern parts of the state. It forms, with its
tributaries (the Little
Arkansas (pronounced Ar-Kansas),
Ninnescah,
Walnut,
Cow Creek,
Cimarron, Verdigris, and the
Neosho), the southern drainage
system of the state. Other important rivers are the
Saline and
Solomon,
tributaries of the Smoky Hill River; the
Big Blue,
Delaware, and
Wakarusa, which flow into the
Kansas River; and the
Marais des Cygnes, a tributary of the Missouri River.
National parks and historic
sites
Areas under
the protection of the
National Park Service include:
Climate
Kansas
contains three climate types, according to the
Köppen climate
classification: humid continental, semiarid steppe, and
humid subtropical. The eastern two-thirds of the state has a
humid continental climate,
with cold winters and hot summers. Most of the precipitation
falls in the summer and spring. The western third of the
state has a semiarid
steppe climate. Summers are hot, often
very hot. Winters are cold in the northwest and cool to mild
in the southwest. Also, the western region is semiarid,
receiving an average of only about 16 inches
(40 cm) of precipitation per year.
Chinook winds in the winter can warm western Kansas all
the way into the 80 degree Fahrenheit (25 °C) range. The far
south-central and southeastern reaches of the state have a
humid subtropical climate,
with long, hot summers, short, mild winters, and much more
precipitation than the rest of the state.
Precipitation ranges from about 46 inches (1200 mm) annually
in the southeast of the state, to about 16 inches (400 mm)
in the southwest. Snowfall ranges from around 5 inches
(130 mm) in the fringes of the south, to 35 inches (900 mm)
in the far northwest. Frost-free days range from more than
200 days in the south, to 130 days in the northwest. Thus,
Kansas is the 9th or 10th sunniest state in the country,
depending on the source. Western Kansas is as sunny as parts
of California and Arizona.
In spite of
the frequent sunshine throughout much of the state, the
state is also vulnerable to strong thunderstorms, especially
in the spring. Many of these storms become
Supercell thunderstorms. These can
spawn tornadoes, often of
F3 strength or higher. According
to statistics from the
National Climatic
Data Center, Kansas has reported more tornadoes (for the
period 1st January 1950 through to 31st October 2006) than
any state except for Texas - marginally
even more than Oklahoma. It has also
- along with Alabama - reported more
F5 tornadoes than any other
state. These are the most powerful of all tornadoes. Kansas
averages over 50 tornadoes annually.
Interactive Kansas State Map
Explore the state of Kansas with the dynamic map below. You can
zoom, pan and even get a satellite map view.
Move your cursor over the markers on the map to
learn more about Kansas.
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