Kansas (listen) is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka and its largest city is Wichita, with its most populated county and largest employmentcenter being Johnson County. Kansas is bordered by Nebraska on the north; Missouri on the east ; Oklahoma on the south ; and Colorado on the west. Kansas is named after the Kansas River, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native Americans who lived along its banks. The tribe 's name (natively kką:ze) is often said to mean " people of the ( south ) wind " although this was probably not the term's original meaning. For thousands of years, what is now Kansas was home to numerous and diverse Native American tribes. Tribes in the eastern part of the state generally lived in villages along the river valleys. Tribes in the western part of the state were semi-nomadic and hunted large herds of bison.
Kansas was first settled by Americans in 1827 with the establishment of Fort Leavenworth. The pace of settlement accelerated in the 1850s, in the midst of political wars over the slavery debate.
