Aarushhh/wikipedia-simple-splitted huggingface dataset:
People who can control the Force with their minds get a number of psychic powers, such telepathy (reading others thoughts), telekenesis (moving things with their minds), precognition (knowing about things before they happen), mind control (telling people commands they must follow), and the ability to heal others (they are healed by transferring ones life force to another to heal there wounds)

The Jedi and the Sith 
The Jedi are a group of beings who use the Force to bring peace and harmony to people, planets, and cultures. They are trained to use the force for good purposes. They are sworn enemies with another group called the Sith.
The Sith are a group of beings who use the force as a power source; they are trained to use the force to gain ultimate power. The Sith normally use the force to gain power in battles with their enemy who are the Jedi. They also use the force to bring destruction to the universe and anything in their way. They are the antagonists, and they usually use red lightsabers in contrast to the variety of colors used by the Jedi. There are usually only two Sith, a master and an apprentice.

Lightsaber
Lightsaber 

The lightsaber is a dangerous and powerful weapon used by the Jedi and the Sith. It can be described simply as a light sword. These weapons are very special to a Jedi or Sith. They are custom built to special specifications by the Jedi or Sith. The Sith tend to take a Jedi's lightsaber as a prize if they win the battle. Many epic battles have been fought with lightsabers between the Jedi and the Sith. For the lightsaber to be a weapon it is powered by a special crystal called a kyber crystal.The kyber crystal comes in many different cololrs such as: Red, white, yellow, orange, and many more. The reason it is powerful and dangerous is that when someone touches the blade, one gets burned straight away.

Story 
The main nine movies (Episodes 1 to 9) are about the Skywalker family. However, the story is told from the point of view of R2-D2 and C-3PO, two droid (robots), who appear in every movie.
Episodes 1—3 
Two Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn travel to a remote desert planet and find a young boy named Anakin Skywalker. They free Anakin from slavery and take him to learn the ways of the Force and to become a Jedi. 

Although Jedi are not allowed to get married, as an adult, Anakin falls in love with Senator Padmé Amidala and they get married. Anakin's later has nightmares of Padmé dying in childbirth so he asks for help from the evil Darth Sidious. Sidious teaches Anakin to become a Sith and Anakin becomes Darth Vader. Sidious uses his army to kill all of the Jedi, with only Yoda and Obi-Wan surviving.
Padmé gives birth to two twins: Luke and Leia, who Vader doesn't know about. After birth, the twins are separated to prevent Vader and the Dark Side from finding and hurting the children. Padmé has died shortly after giving birth. Obi-Wan Kenobi sends Luke to a planet called Tatooine to live with his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. Leia is raised by Senator Bail Organa of the planet Alderaan; she is called Princess Leia Organa.

Episodes 4—6 
Nineteen years later, Luke meets Obi-Wan, Han Solo and Chewbacca. They rescue Princess Leia, who has been captured by Darth Vader and the evil Galactic Empire.  After Darth Vader kills Obi-Wan, Luke travels to a remote swamp planet to learn the Jedi ways from Yoda. Luke becomes a Jedi and rescues Han Solo from a gangster called Jabba the Hutt.
They join the Rebellion and help to fight the Empire. Vader tells Luke that he is his father. Luke and Leia soon find out that they are siblings. Luke meets Darth Sidious, who is now the Evil Emperor. However, Darth Vader turns good again after Sidious begins to torture Luke. Vader kills Sidious and dies.

Episodes 7—9 
Thirty years later, however, the Empire's remnants have come together to form First Order. However, the New Republic does not believe that it is a threat. Those who do believe form the Resistance, led by Leia. During this time Leia has married Han Solo. They had a child, named Ben, but Ben was corrupted by the First Order and a dark-side force user named Snoke and is now called Kylo Ren. Luke spent the thirty years rebuilding the Jedi but has now vanished because Kylo Ren turned evil and killed the others.
Rey, a desert scavenger who doesn't know her family, fights with Han against the First Order, but Kylo Ren kills Han. Rey joins the Resistance and manages to find Luke, who refuses to teach her to become a Jedi. Meanwhile, the First Order has destroyed the New Republic and is chasing the Resistance through space. Luke finally accepts to teach Rey how to be a Jedi. Rey develops a Force-connection with Kylo Ren. She is convinced she can turn him good so she goes to his spaceship. He brings her before  Supreme Leader Snoke. Kylo Ren kills Snoke so that he can become Supreme Leader.
A year later, the Resistance finds out that Darth Sidious has come back from the dead and he is the true leader of the First Order. Rey, Finn (a former stormtrooper), Poe Dameron, Chewbacca and some of their other friends go on a hunt to find the map leading to the planet that Sidious is hiding on. Rey finds out that Sidious is her grandfather. Kylo Ren finally turns good after his mother, Princess Leia dies. Kylo Ren and Rey use the help of the spirits of every dead Jedi to kill Sidious once and for all. Kylo Ren dies shortly after, meaning that all members of the Skywalker family are dead.

Rey returns to Tatooine, the planet where both Anakin and Luke grew up. She buries their lightsabers and when a stranger asks for her name, she says "Rey Skywalker".

Major characters 

There are many more characters in the series who appear in the movies, books and television series such as Ahsoka Tano, Ezra Bridger and Jyn Erso.

Star Wars vehicles
X-wing Fighter
TIE Fighter
Millennium Falcon
Major planets in the Star Wars universe

 Tatooine
 Naboo
 Coruscant
 Jakku
 Alderaan
 Endor
 Bespin
 Hoth

Expanded universe 
Many books, short movies, and video games have been produced that deal with events that do not happen in the original movies. They also tell more about things that did happen in the movies. For example, the book Death Star tells about the building and destruction of the space station from the original movie. It tells much about things seen in that movie but from the point of view of the people on the station. A different example is that in the Expanded Universe, sometimes the Sith are shown as the protagonists. Most of the stories in the Expanded Universe are about the rebuilding of the Republic after the Empire's defeat.  They are set anywhere from the early Sith Wars which happened 5,000 years before Episode VI to more than one hundred years after Episode VI.

Media

Movies 
There are currently eleven live-action movies and one animated movie.
Nine of the movies are labelled as "episodes". These movies are part of the "Skywalker Saga", which is the central story of the franchise and follows the story of Darth Vader. Episodes 4—6 form the Original Trilogy (1977—1983), Episodes 1—3 form the Prequel Trilogy (1999—2005) and Episodes 7—9 form the Sequel Trilogy.

Television Specials 
Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)
Caravan of Courage (1984)
The Battle of Endor (1985)

Television 
There have been 18 television series and three television specials. The longest series is Star Wars: The Clone Wars. In addition, there have also been some short animated miniseries released on YouTube such as Forces of Destiny and Galaxy of Adventures.
Video games 
The Star Wars franchise has spawned over one hundred computer, video, and board games, dating back to some of the earliest home consoles. Some are based directly on the movie material, while others rely heavily on the non-canonical Expanded Universe (rebranded as Star Wars Legends and removed from the canon in 2014). Star Wars games have gone through three significant development eras, marked by a change in leadership among the developers: the early licensed games, those developed after the creation of LucasArts, and those created after the closure of the Lucasfilm division by Disney and the transfer of the license to Electronic Arts.
Early licensed games (1979–1993) 
The first officially licensed electronic Star Wars game was Kenner's 1979 table-top Star Wars Electronic Battle Command. In 1982, Parker Brothers published the first Star Wars video game for the Atari 2600, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, followed soon the year later by Star Wars: Jedi Arena, the first video game to depict lightsaber combat. They were followed in 1983 by Atari's rail shooter arcade game Star Wars, with vector graphics to replicate the Death Star trench run scene from the 1977 film. The next game, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1984), has more traditional raster graphics, while the following Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1985) has vector graphics.
Platform games were made for the Nintendo Entertainment System, including the Japan-exclusive Star Wars (1987), an international Star Wars (1991), and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1992). Super Star Wars (1992) was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, with two sequels over the next two years.
LucasArts and modern self-published games (1993–2014) 
Lucasfilm founded its own video game company in 1982, becoming best known for adventure games and World War II flight combat games, but as George Lucas took more interest in the increasing success of the video game market, he wanted to have more creative control over the games and founded his own development company, LucasArts. Improved graphics allowed games to tell complex narratives, which allowed for the retelling of the films, and eventually original narratives set in the same continuity, with voice-overs and CGI cutscenes. In 1993, LucasArts released Star Wars: X-Wing, the first self-published Star Wars video game and the first space flight simulator based on the franchise. It was one of the bestselling video games of 1993 and established its own series of games. The Rogue Squadron series was released between 1998 and 2003, also focusing on space battles set during the films.
Dark Forces (1995), a hybrid adventure game incorporating puzzles and strategy, was the first Star Wars first-person shooter. It featured gameplay and graphical features not then common in other games, made possible by LucasArts' custom-designed game engine, the Jedi. The game was well received, and it was followed by four sequels. The series introduced Kyle Katarn, who would appear in multiple games, novels, and comics. Katarn is a former stormtrooper who joins the Rebellion and becomes a Jedi, a plot arc similar to that of Finn in the sequel trilogy films. A massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Star Wars Galaxies, was in operation from 2003 until 2011. After Disney bought Lucasfilm, LucasArts ceased its role as a developer in 2013, although it still operates as a licensor.
EA Star Wars (2014–present) 
Following its acquisition of the franchise, Disney reassigned video game rights to Electronic Arts. Games made during this era are considered canonical, and feature more influence from the Star Wars filmmakers. Disney partnered with Lenovo to create the augmented reality video game Jedi Challenges, released in November 2017. In August 2018, it was announced that Zynga would publish free-to-play Star Wars mobile games. The Battlefront games received a canonical reboot with Star Wars: Battlefront in November 2015, which was followed by a sequel, Battlefront II, in November 2017. A single-player action-adventure game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, with an original story and cast of characters, was released in November 2019. A space combat game titled Star Wars: Squadrons, which builds upon the space battles from Battlefront, was released in October 2020.

Upcoming projects
Movies
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is a future Star Wars movie set to be released December 22, 2023. The movie is written and directed by Patty Jenkins making her the first woman to direct a Star Wars film. According to Starwars.com, the movie "will introduce a new generation of starfighter pilots as they earn their wings and risk their lives in a boundary-pushing, high-speed thrill-ride, and move the saga into the future era of the galaxy." 
Untitled Rian Johnson Trilogy a trilogy is currently being worked on by Rian Johnson who wrote and directed Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The trilogy was announced before the release of The Last Jedi but very little has been said about it. Rian Johnson said that he would start writing it after his film Knives Out and that it will take place in a new era with new characters. 
Two Untitled Star Wars films are set to release in December 2025 and December 2027.
A Untitled Kevin Fiege film is currently in currently being developed by Marvel Cinematic Universe producer Kevin Feige
A Untitled Star Wars Taika Watiti film is currently in development and was announced on May 4, 2020. Taika Waititi will be co-writing the movie with Krysty Wilson-Cairns. Taika will also be the director of the film.
Television shows
Lando is a future Disney+ show set in the Star Wars universe. The show will focus on the character Lando Calrissian but it is unclear if Donald Glover or Billy Dee Williams will come back to play Lando. The show is written by Justin Simien.
Rangers of the New Republic is a future Disney+ show set in the Star Wars universe. The show was announced in December 2020 and will be worked on by Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau. It will take place at the same time as, Ahsoka, The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.
Ahsoka is a future Disney+ television show set in the Star Wars universe. It will take place during the time of The Mandalorian, Rangers of the New Republic, and The Book of Boba Fett. The shows will all join together in a story event at an unknown time. Rosario Dawson will be playing Ahsoka Tano again and the show will be written and directed by Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau.
The Acolyte is a future Star Wars Disney+ show written by Leslie Headland. The show will take place during the end of the High Republic Era of Star Wars and take a look at the dark forces in the galaxy as the events of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace get closer.
Visions is a Disney+ show that features ten short anthology anime films by different cartoonist set in the Star Wars universe. It was released in 2021. A second season will be released.
Related pages
Science and Star Wars

References

Other websites 

 Star Wars.com The official Star Wars website
 Official YouTube profile
 TheForce.net—One of the oldest Star Wars Fan Movie sites
 The Rebel Legion
 StarDestroyer.Net
 
 The Force of Star Wars  from Time.com
 Star Wars Trailer 
 Directory to Star Wars sites on the internet. 

 

 
American science fiction movies
Science fiction action movies
Cult movies
The Korean language is spoken mainly in North and South Korea. It is spoken by more than 78 million people (most are North or South Koreans).

In South Korea, it is called hangukmal (한국말) or hangugeo (Hangeul: 한국어, Hanja: 韓國語). In North Korea, however, it is called choseonmal (조선말) or choseoneo (조선어, 朝鮮語). They are named differently because the common names for North and South Korea are different. Additionally, Koreans usually call their language urimal (Hangeul: 우리말) or urinara mal (Hangeul: 우리나라 말), meaning "our language" or "our country's language."
Writing 
Korean uses two different writing systems. One is Hangul, the main alphabet. In North Korea, only Hangeul (Known as Choseongeul in North Korea) is used by law. In South Korea, only Hangeul is used in most public areas like education, but the other system, Hanja, is still used in some newspapers and professional areas. Hanja is the system of Chinese characters that are used in Korean. It was the only way to write Korean before the creation of Hangeul in the 15th century, and it was common in novels before the 19th century.
Although King Sejong the Great led the development of Hangeul to allow literacy to spread among common people and to create a writing system that represented the language more accurately than Hanja, it was not adopted by the upper classes of Koreans. Hanja would continue to be the official writing system until the late 19th century. Although it was rejected by the elite classes, Hangeul was used often by lower classes as a way to write down Korean literature and for lower classes to communicate.

References

 
Language isolates
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. The name of the state comes from the Kansa Native Americans, whose name comes from a Siouan-language phrase meaning "people of the south wind". The land that would become Kansas was bought in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Kansas's capital is Topeka, and its biggest city is Wichita.

Kansas was first settled by Americans in 1827 when Fort Leavenworth was built. In the 1850s, more people came to live in Kansas. This was also when people were fighting about slavery. People were allowed to move to Kansas in 1854 because of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. When this happened, anti-slavery Free-Staters from New England and pro-slavery people from Missouri quickly came to Kansas. They wanted to decide whether Kansas would become a free state or a slave state. Because of this, a lot of fighting happened, and it was known as Bleeding Kansas. The anti-slavery people won. On January 29, 1861, Kansas entered the Union as a free state.
Kansas is in a region known as America's Breadbasket. Like other states in this area, Kansas makes a lot of corn, sorghum, soybeans, and wheat; they make one-fifth of all wheat grown in the United States. Kansas has other industries too, including aviation and communications. Kansas has an area of , which is the 15th-biggest state by area. Kansas is also 34th most-populous of the 50 states because 2,913,314 people live there. People who live in Kansas are called Kansans. Mount Sunflower is Kansas's highest place at .

The terrain of Kansas consists of prairies and forests. All of Kansas is in the Great Plains.

Etymology
The name Kansas comes from the Algonquian term, Akansa, for the Quapaw people. These were a Dhegiha Siouan-speaking people who moved to Arkansas around the 13th century. The stem -kansa is named after the Kaw people. They are also known as the Kansa, a federally recognized Native American tribe.

History
History

Early history
In 1539, Marcos de Niza, a friar, reported rumors of Cíbola, a city of gold, to Spanish colonial officials in Mexico City. Niza said the city was in modern-day New Mexico. In response to the rumors, two years later, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, with an army of 3000 Spaniards and 8001 Mexicans, marched northward from Culiacán in hopes of finding the city. When Coronado did not find the city in New Mexico, he continued northeast into the Mississippi Valley, crossing the present area of Kansas diagonally. This made Conrado and his army the first Europeans to see the Great Plains, including Kansas. Later, Juan de Oñate also traveled to Kansas in 1601.

In 1682, Jacques Marquette, Louis Jolliet, Louis Hennepin and other French leaders took formal control of the Mississippi Valley, including the land that would become Kansas. This land, known as the Louisiana territory, was used to organize trade with Native Americans. In 1763, France ceded the Louisiana territory to Spain.
Between 1763 and 1803 the territory of Kansas was integrated into the Spanish Louisiana. The governor Luis de Unzaga 'le Conciliateur', during that period, promoted expeditions and good relations with the indians tribes, among the explorers were Antoine de Marigny and others who continued trading across the Kansas River, especially at its confluence with the Missouri River, tributaries of the Mississippi River.

However, in 1803, Spain receded the territory back to France in the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso. On April 30, 1803, Napoleon sold the Louisiana territory to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase. In the early 1800s, Kansas was used to hold Native Americans that were removed from their native lands.

Statehood
On May 30, 1854, the Congress signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The Kansas-Nebraska Act stated that Kansas and Nebraska were both territories of the United States. It also stated that Kansans would vote on the legality of slavery.
Between 1854 and 1861, Kansas proposed four state constitutions. Out of the four proposed constitutions, three did not allow slavery. Finally, in July 1859, Kansas passed the Wyandotte Constitution, which was anti-slavery. The constitution for statehood was sent to the U.S. government in April 1860 to be voted on. The constitution was passed by the House of Representatives, but rejected by the Senate. This is because southern voters in the Senate did not like that Kansas would become a state without slavery. In 1861, after the Confederate states formed, the constitution gained approval from the Union, and Kansas became a state.

Kansas in the Civil War

Four months after Kansas became a state, the Civil War started. Out of the 381 battles in the Civil War, four were fought in Kansas. Throughout the war, Kansas remained a Union state.
Post Civil War
After the Civil War, many free slaves came to Oklahoma and Kansas. In fact, between the years of 1879 and 1881, about 60,000 African Americans came to this region. This is because the slaves wanted economic opportunities, which they believed awaited them in Kansas. African Americans also came to Kansas for better political rights and to escape sharecropping. These people were called "Exodusters."

Recent history

Dust Bowl
From 1930 to 1936, Kansas went through a period of time called the Dust Bowl. During this time, Kansas had little rainfall and high temperatures. Thousands of farmers became very poor and had to move to other parts of the United States. In total, 400,000 people left the Great Plains area. The years from 1930 to 1940 was the only time the population of Kansas went down. The number of people living in Kansas decreased 4.3 percent.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
During the 1950s, school segregation was required in fifteen U.S. states. However, Kansas was not one of these states. Instead, school segregation was permitted by local option, but only in elementary schools. In 1896, the ruling from Plessy v. Ferguson stated that segregation was allowed, but equal facilities should be made available for blacks and whites. Often, however, black schools received less funding and had fewer textbooks than white schools.

For these reasons, Linda Brown and her family sued the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Brown won the case, and the ruling was to overturn the Plessy v. Ferguson decision. This was considered by many a landmark case in the civil rights movement.

Geography

Kansas is the 15th-largest state in the United States. It covers an area of 82,282 square miles (213,109 km2). Of this, about 462 square miles (1196.57 km2) are water. This makes up 0.60% of the total area of the state.
Kansas shares borders with Nebraska to the north, Oklahoma to the south, Missouri to the east, and Colorado to the west. Kansas is just as far away from the Pacific Ocean as it is the Atlantic Ocean. The geographic center of the main 48 states is near Lebanon, Kansas. The geographic center of Kansas is in Barton County.

Geology
The underground of Kansas is made of dipping sedimentary rocks, and they are slightly slanted west. A series of Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, and Permian rocks are found in the eastern and southern parts of the state. In the western part of Kansas, Cretaceous can be found sticking up from the ground. This happened because of the erosion from the geologically uplifted Rocky Mountains west of Kansas. Northeastern Kansas was affected by glaciation during the Pleistocene.
Topography
All of Kansas is in the Great Plains, where the land is mostly flat with prairies and grasslands. Eastern Kansas has hills and forests, like the Flint Hills and the Osage Plains in the southeastern part of the state.

Kansas increases in elevation from east to west. The highest place in the state is Mount Sunflower near the Colorado border. Mount Sunflower is 4,039 ft (1,231 m) tall. The lowest point is the Verdigris River in Montgomery County, at 679 ft (207 m) above sea level. It is a common misconception that Kansas is the flattest state – in 2003, a tongue-in-cheek study famously said the state is "flatter than a pancake". Kansas has a maximum topographic relief of . This makes Kansas the 23rd flattest U.S. state.

Rivers
Rivers

About  of the Kansas's northeastern border is the Missouri River. The Kansas River is created by the junction of the Smoky Hill River and Republican River. This happens at Junction City. The Kansas River then joins the Missouri River at Kansas City. It goes  across the northeastern part of the state.

The Arkansas River (pronunciation varies) starts in Colorado. It goes for about  across the western and southern parts of Kansas.

Kansas's has other rivers. There is the Saline River and the Solomon River. They are tributaries of the Smoky Hill River. The Big Blue River, the Delaware River, and the Wakarusa River flow into the Kansas River. The Marais des Cygnes River is a tributary of the Missouri River. Spring River is between Riverton and Baxter Springs.
National parks and historic places
Areas under the protection of the National Park Service include:
 Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka
 California National Historic Trail
 Fort Larned National Historic Site in Larned
 Fort Scott National Historic Site
 Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail
 Nicodemus National Historic Site at Nicodemus
 Oregon National Historic Trail
 Pony Express National Historic Trail
 Santa Fe National Historic Trail
 Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve near Strong City
Plants and animals
In Kansas, there are currently 238 species of rare animals and 400 rare plants. Among those include: Boechera laevigata, Virginia Rail, Cleft Ledge, Royal Fern, Turkey-tangle, Bobolink, Cave Salamander, Peregrine Falcon, and Black-footed ferret. Common animal species and grasses include: Crows, Deer, Lesser Prairie Chicken, Mice, Moles, Opossum, Prairie Dogs, Raccoon, Tripsacum dactyloides, Prairie Dropseed, Indian Grass, Little Bluestem, Switch Grass, Northern Sea Oats, Tussock Sedge, Sideoats Grama, and Big Bluestem.

Weather

The Köppen climate classification says that Kansas's climate has three types depending on where in the state it is: it has humid continental, semi-arid steppe, and humid subtropical. The eastern 2/3 of the state (especially the northeastern part) has a humid continental climate. This means it has cool to cold winters and hot, often humid summers. Most of the precipitation happens during both the summer and the spring.
The western 1/3 of the state – from about U.S. Route 83 to west of it – has a semiarid steppe climate. Summers are hot, often very hot, and generally less humid. Winters vary a lot. Winters can be anything between warm and very cold. The western region gets an average of about  of precipitation per year. Chinook winds in the winter can warm western Kansas all the way into the  range.

The far south-central and southeastern parts of Kansas, including the Wichita area, have a humid subtropical climate. This means it has hot and humid summers, and it has milder winters. It also has more precipitation than other places in Kansas. Some things about three climates can be found in most of Kansas. Many parts can get droughts and varied weather. Places can be dry or humid. Places can get both warm or cold in the winter.
Temperatures in many areas in the western half of Kansas reach  or hotter on most days of June, July, and August. Because of the high humidity, the heat index can be deadly, especially in Wichita, Hutchinson, Salina, Russell, Hays, and Great Bend. Temperatures are often high in Dodge City, Garden City, and Liberal, but the heat index in those three cities is usually lower than the actual air temperature.

Temperatures of  or higher are not as common in the eastern half of Kansas. However, higher humidity and the urban heat island effect make most summer days reach between  and  in Topeka, Lawrence, and the Kansas City metropolitan area. During the summer, the low temperatures each night in the northeastern part of the state don't get colder than  very often. Also, because of the humidity being between 85 and 95 percent, dangerous heat can be felt all day.
Kansas has a varied climate with an average yearly temperature of 56°F (13°C). The highest temperature ever in Kansas is 121 °F (49.4 °C). This happened in Fredonia on July 18, 1936, and in Alton on July 24, 1936. The lowest temperature ever in Kansas is -40 °F (-40 °C). This occurred in Lebanon on February 13, 1905. Kansas is in a temperate area of the country. Like other states in this region, Kansas has four distinct seasons.

Kansas can have extreme weather in all four seasons. For example, in spring and autumn, Kansas has many tornadoes. In fact, Kansas gets about 55 tornadoes per year. This is because Kansas is in the area known as Tornado Alley, where cold and warm air masses come together to make severe weather.

In summer, Kansas has experienced severe droughts. For example, in 1934, 1936, and 1939, Kansas had less than average rainfall and widespread dust storms as a part of the Dust Bowl.
In winter, Kansas has snow in most parts of the state. The average snowfall in the northern half of the state is 16 inches, with the average snowfall in the southern half of the state being 8 inches. Blizzards and related snowstorms are rare in Kansas.

Cities and Counties

Kansas is organized into 105 counties. Each county has a county seat. There are 627 incorporated cities in Kansas.

Wichita is the biggest city in Kansas; it has almost 400,000 people. It is in Sedgwick County, which has about 520,000 people. Sedgwick County has the biggest city in Kansas, but it does not have the most people of any county in Kansas; Johnson County has more than 600,000 people. Johnson County has four of the biggest cities in Kansas: Overland Park, Olathe, Shawnee, and Lenexa. They are all suburbs of nearby Kansas City. Topeka is the capital of Kansas. Lawrence is a college town between Kansas City and Topeka.

People
People

Kansas had 627 cities in 2008. The largest city in Kansas is Wichita, which had a population of 382,368 in 2010. The other largest cities in Kansas are: Overland Park, 173,372; Kansas City, 145,786; Topeka, 127,473; and Olathe, 125,872. Between the years of 2000 and 2010, the Kansas population increased 6.1 percent.

Ancestry
The 2010 Census says that the people of Kansas were:
 83.8% White American (77.5% non-Hispanic white)
 5.9% Black or African American
 1.0% American Indian and Alaska Native
 2.4% Asian American
 0.1% Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander
 3.0% from two or more races.

Ethnically 10.5% of the total population was of Hispanic or Latino origin (they may be of any race). They are mostly in southwest Kansas. Many black people in Kansas were from the Exodusters, free black people who left the South.

As of 2011, 35.0% of Kansas's population younger than one year old were part of a minority group (i.e., did not have two parents who were non-Hispanic white).
Language
English is the most-spoken language in Kansas. About 95% of people only speak English. Spanish is second.

Regions

Northeast Kansas

The northeastern part of the state, going from the eastern border to Junction City and from the Nebraska border to south of Johnson County, has more than 1.5 million people in the Kansas City (Kansas portion), Manhattan, Lawrence, and Topeka metropolitan areas. Overland Park is the biggest city in the county. Johnson County Community College is there, and the corporate campus of Sprint Nextel is also there. In 2006, Overland Park was ranked as the sixth best place to live in America; the nearby city of Olathe was 13th.

Olathe is the county seat of Johnson County. Olathe, Shawnee, De Soto, and Gardner are some of Kansas's fastest growing cities.
There are many universities and colleges in the northeast. Baker University is the oldest university in the state (created in 1858), and it is in Baldwin City. Benedictine College is in Atchison. MidAmerica Nazarene University is in Olathe. Ottawa University is in Ottawa and Overland Park. Kansas City Kansas Community College and KU Medical Center are in Kansas City. The KU Edwards Campus is in Overland Park. Lawrence has the University of Kansas, the biggest public university in Kansas. Lawrence also has Haskell Indian Nations University.

Topeka is the state capital, and about 250,000 people live in the metropolitan area. Washburn University and Washburn Institute of Technology are in Topeka.

Wichita
Wichita

In south-central Kansas, the Wichita metropolitan area has over 600,000 people. Wichita is the biggest city in the state in terms of both land area and number of people. 'The Air Capital' is a major manufacturing area for the aircraft industry. It's also where Wichita State University is. Before Wichita was 'The Air Capital' it was a cowtown. Wichita's population growth has grown by more than 10%. The nearby suburbs are some of the fastest growing cities in Kansas. The number of people in Goddard has grown by more than 11% per year since 2000.

Wichita was one of the first cities to add the city commissioner and city manager in their form of government. Wichita is also home of the nationally recognized Sedgwick County Zoo.
Southeast Kansas
Southeast Kansas is different in that it was a coal-mining region. It has many places on the National Register of Historic Places. Pittsburg is the biggest city in the region. It is where Pittsburg State University is. Frontenac in 1888 was where one of the worst mine disasters in Kansas happened; an underground explosion killed 47 miners. Fort Scott has a national cemetery. It was designated by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862.

Central Kansas
Salina is the biggest city in central and north-central Kansas. South of Salina is the small city of Lindsborg. Lindsborg has many Dala horses. Abilene was where President Dwight D. Eisenhower lived. It is where his Presidential Library is. It also has the tombs of the former president, First Lady and son who died in infancy.

Northwest Kansas

The city of Hays is the biggest city in the northwest as it has about 20,000 people living there. Hays is where Fort Hays State University is. It also has the Sternberg Museum of Natural History.
There are very few people that live west of Hays. There are only two towns that have at least 4,000 people: Colby and Goodland.

Southwest Kansas
Dodge City was famous for the cattle drives it had in the late 19th century. It was built along the old Santa Fe Trail route. The city of Liberal is along the southern Santa Fe Trail route. The first wind farm in the state was built east of Montezuma. Garden City has the Lee Richardson Zoo.

Economy

The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that Kansas's total gross domestic product in 2014 was  billion. In 2015, the job growth rate in was .8%. This was one of the lowest rate in America with only "10,900 total nonfarm jobs" added that year. The Kansas Department of Labor's 2016 report found the average yearly wage was $42,930 in 2015. In April 2016, the state's unemployment rate was 4.2%.

The State of Kansas had a $350 million budget deficit in February 2017. In February 2017, S&P downgraded Kansas's credit rating to AA-.
The median household income for Kansas was $47,709 in 2009. The gross domestic product (GDP) for Kansas was $122,700,000,000 ($122.7 billion) in 2008. Overall, Kansas' GDP accounts for less than 1 percent of total U.S. economy.

Kansas has three big military bases: Fort Riley, Fort Leavenworth, and McConnell Air Force Base. The US Army reserve has about 25,000 soldiers at these bases, and they also have about 8,000 civilian employees there.

Agriculture

40% of Kansas's economy is farming. In 2017, there were 58,569 farms in Kansas.

In 2020, Kansas produced more grain sorghum and wheat than any other state in the United States. Kansas farmers produce about 400 million bushels of wheat per year. Kansas also ranks second in the United States in cropland and silage sorghum, third in cattle and raw meat, and fourth in sunflowers produced. Other agricultural products are cattle, sheep, wheat, sorghum, soybeans, cotton, hogs, corn, and salt.
87.5% of Kansas's land is used for farming. As of 2018, there were 59,600 farms in Kansas, 86 (0.14%) of which are certified organic farms. The size of the average farm in the state is 781 acres (more than a square mile). In 2016, the average cost of running the farm was $300,000.

Industry
The industrial products are transportation equipment, commercial and private aircraft, food processing, publishing, chemical products, machinery, apparel, petroleum, and mining. 4% of Kansas's GDP is from the aviation industry. Many parts of airplanes are made in Wichita. Also, many important companies are near Kansas City, Missouri. For example, the Sprint Nextel Corporation is one of the biggest telephone companies in the United States. Its main operational offices are in Overland Park, Kansas.
Energy
Kansas has many renewable resources. Kansas is one of the biggest producers of wind power in the United States. In 2019, Kansas had an installed capacity of about 6,100 Megawatts (MW) from about 3,200 wind turbines. Wind produced the biggest amount of electricity from the state at 41%. An additional 700 MW of capacity was scheduled to become available during 2020. Kansas is also one of the biggest national producers of renewable ethanol and biodiesel fuels; Kansas produces about 600 million gallons per year.

Kansas is eighth in US petroleum extraction. Production has slowly lowered because Kansas's limited economical reserves (especially from the Anadarko Basin) are being used up. Since oil prices reached their lowest level in 1999, oil production in Kansas has remained about the same; it had an average monthly rate of about  in 2004. The recent higher prices have made carbon dioxide sequestration and other oil recovery techniques more economical.
Taxes
During his campaign for the 2010 election, Governor Sam Brownback said he would get rid of the state income tax. In May 2012, Governor Brownback signed into law the Kansas Senate Bill Substitute HB 2117. Starting in 2013, the "ambitious tax overhaul" lowered income tax, got rid of some corporate taxes, and created pass-through income tax exemptions. He raised the sales tax by one percent to make up for the loss of the other taxes. However, the sales tax was not enough to make up for it. He made cuts to education and some state services to make up for the lost revenue. The tax cut led to years of budget shortfalls. The worst was a $350 million budget shortfall in February 2017. From 2013 to 2017, 300,000 businesses were considered to be pass-through income entities and benefited from the tax exemption. The tax reform "encouraged tens of thousands of Kansans to claim their wages and salaries as income from a business rather than from employment."
In February 2017, a bi-partisan group wrote a bill that would repeal the pass-through income exemption, the "most important provisions of Brownback's overhaul", and raise taxes to make up for the budget shortfall. Brownback vetoed the bill but "45 GOP legislators had voted in favor of the increase, while 40 voted to uphold the governor's veto." On June 6, 2017 a group of Democrats and newly elected Republicans overrode Brownback's veto. They increased taxes to an amount that is close to what it was before 2013. Brownback's tax plan was described in a June 2017 article in The Atlantic as the United States' "most aggressive experiment in conservative economic policy". The tax cuts had made schools and infrastructure difficult to get funding in Kansas.

Transportation

Highways
There are two interstate highways in Kansas. The first part of the interstate highway opened on Interstate 70 west of Topeka. It opened on November 14, 1956.
Interstate 70 is an important east–west highway. People can go from Kansas City, Missouri to Denver, Colorado. Cities on this highway include Colby, Hays, Salina, Junction City, Topeka, Lawrence, Bonner Springs, and Kansas City.

Interstate 35 is a major north–south highway from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Des Moines, Iowa. Cities on this highway include Wichita, El Dorado, Emporia, Ottawa, and Kansas City (and suburbs).

Interstate Highways
 
  (formerly known as I-35W)

U.S. Routes
U.S. Routes

Airports
Kansas's only major commercial (Class C) airport is Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport. It is along US-54 on the western part of Wichita. Manhattan Regional Airport in Manhattan has flights every day to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. This would it the second-biggest commercial airport in Kansas. Most air travelers in northeastern Kansas fly out of Kansas City International Airport, which is in Platte County, Missouri. Some also use the Topeka Regional Airport in Topeka.

In the state's southeastern part, people often use Tulsa International Airport in Tulsa, Oklahoma or Joplin Regional Airport in Joplin, Missouri. People in the far western part of the state often use the Denver International Airport. Connecting flights are also available from smaller Kansas airports in Dodge City, Garden City, Hays, Hutchinson, Liberal, or Salina.

Rail
Rail

Passenger Rail
The Southwest Chief Amtrak route goes through the state on its route from Chicago to Los Angeles. Stops in Kansas include Lawrence, Topeka, Newton, Hutchinson, Dodge City, and Garden City. An Amtrak Thruway Motorcoach connects Newton and Wichita to the Heartland Flyer in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Amtrak may change the Southwest Chief route from using train service for the entire route. Plans call for shortening the route to Los Angeles to instead end in Albuquerque. Buses would replace the train on the route between Albuquerque and Dodge City, where train service east to Chicago would continue.

Freight Rail
Kansas has four Class I railroads, Amtrak, BNSF, Kansas City Southern, and Union Pacific, as well as many shortline railroads.

Law and government

State and local politics
Executive branch: The executive branch has the governor, the lieutenant governor, the attorney general, the secretary of state, the treasurer, and the insurance commissioner.
Legislative branch: The legislative branch is the Kansas Legislature. It is a bicameral legislature. It has the Kansas House of Representatives and the Kansas Senate. The House has 125 members, and the Senate has 40 members.

Judicial Branch: The judicial branch is headed by the Kansas Supreme Court. The Kansas Supreme Court has seven judges. If there is a spot open, the governor picks who to replace them.

Political culture
Since the middle of the 20th century, Kansas has been socially conservative. In 1999 and 2005, the Board of Education voted to stop teaching evolution in schools. In 2005, Kansas banned same-sex marriage. In 2006, Kansas made the lowest age to marry 15 years old.

Kansas allowed women's suffrage in 1912. This was nearly a decade before the United States allowed it.

National politics
National politics

The state's current delegation to the Congress of the United States includes Republican Senators Pat Roberts of Dodge City and Jerry Moran of Manhattan; and Republican Representatives Roger Marshall of Great Bend (District 1), Steve Watkins (District 2), Ron Estes of Wichita (District 4), and Democratic Representative Sharice Davids (District 3).

Kansas has been strongly Republican. The Republican Party was very strong since Kansas became a state. This is because Republicans were very anti-slavery, and Kansas was also anti-slavery. Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the United States Senate since 1932.

Abilene has the childhood house of Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower. Two Republican presidential candidates, Alf Landon and Bob Dole, were also from Kansas.

Education

Primary and secondary schools are controlled by the Kansas State Department of Education. Public colleges and universities are controlled by the Kansas Board of Regents.
In 1999 and 2005, the Board of Education voted to teach intelligent design in science classes. Both times, they changed their decision after the next election.

Culture

Music
The rock band Kansas was created in Topeka. Many of the band's members are from there.

Joe Walsh, guitarist for the famous rock band the Eagles, was born in Wichita.

Danny Carey, drummer for the band Tool, was raised in Paola.

Singer Melissa Etheridge is from Leavenworth. Singer Martina McBride is from Sharon. Singer Janelle Monáe is from Kansas City.

In 1947, Kansas chose "Home on the Range" as their state song.

Books
Kansas's most famous appearance in a book was as the home of Dorothy Gale. She is the main character in the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900).
Movies
The Plaza Cinema in Ottawa, Kansas was built on May 22, 1907. It is listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest operating movie theater in the world.
 Dorothy Gale (portrayed by Judy Garland) in the 1939 fantasy film The Wizard of Oz was a young girl who lived in Kansas with her aunt and uncle. The line, "We're not in Kansas anymore", has become a phrase to describe very new and/or unexpected situation.
 The 1967 feature film In Cold Blood was set in various locations across Kansas. Many parts in the film were filmed at the exact places where the events in the book happened. A 1996 TV miniseries was also based on the book.
 The 1988 film Kansas starred Andrew McCarthy as a traveler who met up with a dangerous wanted drifter played by Matt Dillon.
The 2005 film Capote, for which Philip Seymour Hoffman was awarded the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the title character. He profiled the author as he traveled across Kansas while writing In Cold Blood (although most of the film itself was shot in the Canadian province of Manitoba).
 The setting of The Day After, a 1983 made-for-television movie about a fictional nuclear attack, was the city of Lawrence.
 The 2013 film Man of Steel is set primarily in Kansas (as Superman is from Smallville, Kansas – a fictitious town).
 The 2012 film Looper is set in Kansas.
The 1973 film Paper Moon in which Tatum O'Neal won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (The youngest to win an Academy Award) was based in and filmed in Kansas. The film was shot in the small towns of Hays; McCracken; Wilson; and St. Joseph, Missouri. Various shooting locations include the Midland Hotel at Wilson; the railway depot at Gorham; storefronts and buildings on Main Street in White Cloud; Hays; sites on both sides of the Missouri River; Rulo Bridge; and Saint Joseph, Missouri.
 Parts of the 1996 film Mars Attacks! were set in the fictional town of Perkinsville. Scenes set in Kansas were filmed in Burns, Lawrence, and Wichita.
 The 2007 film The Lookout is set mostly in Kansas (although filmed in Canada). Specifically two locations; Kansas City and the fictional town of Noel, Kansas.
 The 2012 documentary The Gridiron was filmed at The University of Kansas
 The 2014 ESPN documentary No Place Like Home was filmed in Lawrence and the countryside of Douglas County, Kansas
The 2017 film Thank You for Your Service is mostly set in Kansas, including the cities of Topeka and Junction City.
 The 2017 documentary When Kings Reigned was filmed in Lawrence.
 The 2019 film Brightburn was set in the fictional town of Brightburn. As is evident with scenes in the film depicting mountains (Kansas has no mountain ranges), it was filmed in Georgia instead of in Kansas.