Study Overseas

The Sunflower State

Kansas terrain is mostly flat plains except in the eastern section of the state where hills and forests break up the monotony of the plains. However, the flat plains create a tranquil sort of beauty unique to this area of the Midwest. Kansas is also the ninth sunniest state in the U.S. Some authorities even believe that it gets as much sun as California or Arizona.

Large City Greatness

Wichita is Kansas’ largest city and considered the “Air Capital of the World” because of its major manufacturing center for the aircraft industry. Wichita holds up to the standards of most bustling cities and always has entertainment for anyone. The Wichita Gardens is a popular resort containing 24 themed gardens including the popular Butterfly Garden and award winning Sally Stone Sensory Garden. Festivals abound every year with the Wichita Jazz Festival and the Wichita River Festival, which is the longest continuous running festival in Kansas. It has over 70 events including musical entertainment, sporting events, traveling exhibits, flea markets, plays and cultural and historical activities.

Up in Space

The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center is a museum and education facility in Hutchinson, Kansas that is best known for the display and restoration of space artifacts and education camps. It started out as a planetarium on the Kansas State Fair grounds in 1962 and moved to Hutchinson Community College in 1966. Today, the Space Center is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution and has the largest collection of artefacts from the Russian Space Program outside of Moscow. Other notable exhibits include Apollo 13 command module, an SR-71 Blackbird, Liberty 7 and actual Mercury Redstone and Gemini Titan rockets.

Want to Learn More

The Kansas Museum of History is located in Topeka, Kansas and presents Kansas history from prehistoric to modern eras in 30,000 square feet of exhibits. The museum has changing and fixed exhibits ranging in topics including Native American tribal history, westward movement on the Oregon and Santa Fe trails, early settlers, the Bleeding Kansas and Civil War eras and populism. The museum also has nature trails, an education and conference center and a historic one-room school used for education programs. Notable artefacts include John Brown’s pike, George Armstrong Custer’s riding boots, William Allen White’s printing press and Dwight D. Eisenhower’s World War II field jacket.

Kansas Fact File

Nickname: The Sunflower State
Motto: Ad astra per aspera (Through hardships to the stars)
Capital: Topeka
Population: 2,688,418
Website: www.kansas.gov
State Animal: American Buffalo
State Amphibian: Barred Tiger Salamander
State Flower: Wild Native Sunflower
State Tree: Cottonwood
State Song: Home on the Range

Did You Know?

• William Purvis and Charles Wilson of Goodland, Kansas invented the helicopter in 1609.
• Dodge City is the windiest city in the U.S. with an average wind speed of 14 mph.
• Cawker City, Kansas has the largest ball of twine with a 38 foot circumference and weighs almost 17,000 pounds.
• In October 2005, a world record meteorite was dug up in rural Kiowa County, Kansas.
• The giant meteorite, the largest pallasite ever found, weighed 1,400 pounds.