Kansas City metropolitan area

The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With 8,472 square miles (21,940 km) and a population of more than 2.2 million people, it is the second-largest metropolitan area centered in Missouri (after Greater St. Louis) and is the largest metropolitan area in Kansas, though Wichita is the largest metropolitan area centered in Kansas. Alongside Kansas City, Missouri, these are the suburbs with populations above 100,000: Overland Park, Kansas; Kansas City, Kansas; Olathe, Kansas; Independence, Missouri; and Lee's Summit, Missouri.
Business enterprises and employers include Cerner Corporation (the largest, with almost 10,000 local employees and about 20,000 global employees), AT&T, BNSF Railway, GEICO, Asurion, T-Mobile (formerly Sprint), Black & Veatch, AMC Theatres, Citigroup, Garmin, Hallmark Cards, Waddell & Reed, H&R Block, General Motors, Honeywell, the Ford Kansas City Assembly Plant, The Kansas City Star, Bayer, Children's Mercy Hospital, Truman Medical Center-Hospital Hill, and Andrews McMeel Universal (representing Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, and Doonesbury). Shopping centers include City Market, Crown Center, Country Club Plaza, Independence Center, Legends Outlets Kansas City, Oak Park Mall, Ward Parkway Center, and Zona Rosa.
Cultural attractions include the American Jazz Museum, the Kansas City Symphony, Kansas City Union Station, the National World War I Museum, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, the National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Arabia Steamboat Museum, Uptown Theater, Midland Theatre, the Kansas City Zoo, Swope Park (featuring Starlight Theater), Sandstone Amphitheater, the Kansas City Renaissance Festival, Worlds of Fun, Oceans of Fun, the College Basketball Experience and several casinos. Major league sports franchises include the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs, the MLB's Kansas City Royals, and the MLS's Sporting Kansas City. The Kansas Speedway is owned by NASCAR.
Historic features include the confluence of the eastern endpoints of the California, Santa Fe, and Oregon Trails in Independence; the Harry S. Truman Historic District; and the neighborhoods of Westport, 18th and Vine, and Pendleton Heights. Historic cultural origins include KC styles of jazz, vaudeville theater, barbecue, and steak.
The larger Kansas City metropolitan area can be visualized as a map with roughly four quadrants:
The southeast quadrant includes Kansas City, Missouri, and surrounding areas in Missouri. It includes the Grandview Triangle.
The southwest quadrant includes all of Johnson County, Kansas, which includes the towns in the area known as Shawnee Mission, Kansas. Interstate 35 runs diagonally through Johnson County, Kansas, from the southwest to Downtown Kansas City, Missouri.
The northwest quadrant contains Wyandotte, and Leavenworth, counties in Kansas and parts of Platte County, Missouri. Wyandotte County, Kansas (sometimes referred to as just Wyandotte), contains Kansas City, Kansas; Bonner Springs, Kansas; and Edwardsville, Kansas; it is governed by a single unified government. Another bend in the Missouri River forms the county line between Wyandotte County, Kansas, and Platte County, Missouri, to the north and northeast.
The map's northeast quadrant is referred to as the Northland. It includes parts of Clay County, Missouri, including North Kansas City, Missouri and Parkville, Missouri. North Kansas City is bounded by a bend in the Missouri River that defines a border between Wyandotte County, Kansas, and Clay County, Missouri, running approximately north–south and a border between North Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Missouri, running approximately east–west. The river bend's sharpest part forms a peninsula containing the Kansas City Downtown Airport.
Downtown Kansas City, Missouri has a population of 25,204. Downtown is Kansas City's historic center, located entirely within Kansas City, Missouri, and contains the city's original town site, business districts, and residential neighborhoods. Downtown is bounded by the Missouri River on the north, the Missouri-Kansas state line on the west, 31st Street on the south and Woodland Avenue on the east. The downtown area includes the Central Business District and its buildings, which form the city's skyline. The Downtown Loop is formed by Interstates 670, 70, and 35. Within the downtown loop are many of the tall buildings and skyscrapers that make up the city's skyline. The downtown loop also has small, distinct neighborhoods such as Quality Hill, the Garment District, the Financial District, the Convention Center District, and the Power and Light District.
Other nearby neighborhoods are River Market and Columbus Park, both located between the downtown loop and the Missouri River. Between the downtown loop and the state line are the Westside neighborhood and the West Bottoms, located at the bottom of the bluff adjacent to Kaw Point. East of the loop are the 18th & Vine District, the North Bottoms, and Northeast Kansas City (the East Bottoms, Northeast, and Pendleton Heights). South of the loop is the Crossroads District, Union Hill, Crown Center, Hospital Hill, Longfellow, Wendell Phillips, and Washington Wheatley.
The Kansas City Convention Center, Municipal Auditorium, City Hall, Lyric Theater, Midland Theatre, Ilus Davis Park, and Barney Allis Plaza are within the Central Business District inside the downtown loop. The T-Mobile Center and the College Basketball Experience are within the Power & Light District, also within the downtown loop. The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts is perched upon a high point immediately south of the downtown loop. South of the loop is the Crossroads District, Union Station, Crown Center, the National World War I Museum, Liberty Memorial, Penn Valley Park, University Health Truman Medical Center, Children's Mercy Hospital, and the 18th & Vine District. North of the loop are City Market within the River Market and Richard L. Berkeley Riverfront Park. West of the loop within the West Bottoms are Hy-Vee Arena and Hale Arena.
Midtown/Plaza is entirely within Kansas City, Missouri with a population of 40,355. It is just south of downtown, and bounded by 31st Street on the north, the state line on the west, West Gregory Boulevard (71st Street) on the south, and Troost Avenue on the east. Midtown/Plaza, the core of the metropolitan area, has many cultural attractions, shopping and entertainment areas, large hospitals, universities, and the metro area's most densely populated neighborhoods.
Midtown/Plaza has many distinct and historic neighborhoods, including Westport, Hyde Park, and Southmoreland. Shopping is centered on the Country Club Plaza, which has luxury retailers, hotels, and restaurants. Brookside and Westport also contain smaller-scale, neighborhood-oriented, and niche-market retailers. Midtown is home to Saint Luke's Hospital of Kansas City and Research Medical Center. Cultural attractions include the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Uptown Theater, Starlight Theater, the Kansas City Zoo, Loose Park, and Swope Park. The last of these has a soccer complex that is home to the Swope Park Rangers, a USL Championship team that is the official reserve side for the area's Major League Soccer club, Sporting Kansas City. Major educational institutions include the University of Missouri–Kansas City, Rockhurst University, Kansas City Art Institute, Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Midwest Research Institute, and Penn Valley Community College.
East Side of the Metro is primarily eastern Jackson County which is an area of the Kansas City Metro that contains the far-eastern urban side of Kansas City, Missouri and the following large suburbs of Blue Springs, Independence, and Lee's Summit. The area includes western Lafayette County Missouri and the far northeast portion of Cass County Missouri. The East Side of Metro includes the Missouri suburbs of Independence,Grandview,Blue Springs, Raytown, Lees Summit, Grain Valley, Oak Grove, Sugar Creek, River Bend, Lake Lotawana, Lone Jack, Greenwood, Unity Village, Buckner, Pleasant Hill, Bates City, Odessa, and Lake Tapawingo. Arrowhead Stadium, home of the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs and Kauffman Stadium, home of the MLB's Kansas City Royals are on the eastern edge of Kansas City. The Cable Dahmer Arena home of the ECHL's Kansas City Mavericks and the MASL's Kansas City Comets is in Independence.
Johnson County, Kansas contains many municipalities with a population of 609,863. It has the largest economy in the metropolitan area and is the fastest growing county by total population. Municipalities include Overland Park, Olathe, Shawnee, Leawood, Lenexa, Prairie Village, Gardner, Merriam, Mission, Roeland Park, Fairway, Lake Quivira, Mission Hills, Mission Woods, Westwood, and Westwood Hills. Corporate headquarters include Garmin, Black & Veatch, and AMC Theatres, and the secondary headquarters of T-Mobile. Many local area attractions and shopping districts are in Johnson County, such as Oak Park Mall, Town Center Plaza, and Prairie Fire.
The Northland is the area north of the Missouri River, bordered by the Kansas state line on the west. The southern half of Platte County, and much of Clay County make up the area. The Northland is a fast-growing, primarily suburban region of the metropolitan area, although much of it is contained within the city limits of Kansas City, Missouri. The economy of the Northland is dominated by Cerner, Kansas City International Airport, Ford Kansas City Assembly Plant, the Zona Rosa shopping community and three riverboat casinos. The metro area's largest amusement park, Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun, is in the Northland. Major educational institutions in the Northland include Park University, William Jewell College, and the Maple Woods campus of Metropolitan Community College. The Northland is also home to the popular recreational reservoir, Smithville Lake. Communities of the Northland outside the city limits include Parkville, Kearney, Liberty, Platte City, Gladstone, Riverside, Smithville, North Kansas City, and Weatherby Lake.
Wyandotte County, Kansas has a population of 169,245 and contains Kansas City, Kansas, Bonner Springs, Kansas, and Edwardsville, Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas is locally called "KCK" to distinguish it from the larger Kansas City, Missouri (KCMO). It contains many residential neighborhoods, the Fairfax Industrial District, and the Village West entertainment district. The General Motors Fairfax Assembly Plant is in the Fairfax Industrial District. Village West contains many area attractions. This includes many sporting venues such as Children's Mercy Park, home of the area MLS soccer team Sporting Kansas City, the Kansas Speedway, which hosts many NASCAR races, and Field of Legends, home of the independent baseball team, the Kansas City Monarchs, and the Legends shopping district. Bonner Springs is home to the Azura Amphitheater (commonly known as the Sandstone Amphitheater), the National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame, Wyandotte County Historical Museum, and the annual Kansas City Renaissance Festival.
Cass County, Missouri has a population of 107,824 and contains parts of "South Kansas City". This area consists of the most southern part of Kansas City, Missouri, and the suburbs of Harrisonville, Belton, Loch Lloyd, Peculiar, and Raymore.
Leavenworth County, Kansas has a population of 81,881 and contains the cities of Leavenworth and Lansing, and the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.
The Kansas City metropolitan area (MO-KS) population in 2018 was 2,106,632 and the Kansas City CSA in 2022 was 2,209,152.
The MSA covers a total area of 7,952 sq mi (20,600 km) including 97 sq mi (250 km) of water.
Often associated with Kansas City, the cities of Lawrence, Kansas and Saint Joseph, Missouri are identified as separate Metropolitan Statistical Areas.
The Kansas City-Overland Park-Kansas City MO-KS (USA) Combined Statistical Area (CSA) encompasses the Metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) of Kansas City MO-KS, the St. Joseph metropolitan area and the Lawrence, Kansas metropolitan area with the Micropolitan Statistical Areas (μSA) of Warrensburg, Missouri, Atchison, Kansas, and Ottawa, Kansas. (Warrensburg is in Johnson County, Missouri. Atchison is in Atchison County, Kansas. Ottawa is in Franklin County, Kansas.) The combined statistical area covers a total area of 9,220 sq mi (23,900 km) including 103 sq mi (270 km) of water.
The Kansas City metro area is a swing metro area, going between the Republican and Democratic parties for decades and voting for Democratic and Republican presidential candidates equally since 2000. It is unlike most other large cities in the United States; most populous metropolitan areas lean Democratic, which makes Kansas City slightly Republican as compared to metros of similar size, even as compared to St. Louis, which is also centered in Missouri.
As of 2019, Missouri accounted for 56% of employment and Kansas accounted for 44% of employment. From 2018 to 2019 Kansas added 13,000 jobs and Missouri added 6,500 jobs. Kansas side employment grew by 2.7% and Missouri side employment grew by 1.1%; job growth in Kansas was more than double that in Missouri. Professional and business employment growth was due entirely to a gain of 5,200 jobs in the Kansas portion of the metro area.
In 2015, the metropolitan area accounted for 40.9% of the total GDP in the state of Kansas and 22.7% of the total GDP in the state of Missouri.
The Kansas City metropolitan area has more freeway lane miles per capita than any other large metropolitan area in the United States. This is 27% more than the second-place Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, 50% more than the average American metro area, and nearly 75% more than the large metro area with the least in Las Vegas.
The Kansas City area is a confluence of four major U.S. interstate highways:
Other interstates that cross through the area include:
U.S. Highways serving the Kansas City Metro Area include these:
Kansas highways in the area include these:
Missouri highways in the area include these:
These are other notable roads:
The Missouri side of the metropolitan area south of the Missouri River shares a grid system with Johnson County on the Kansas side. Most east–west streets are numbered and most north–south streets named. Addresses on east–west streets are numbered from Main Street in Kansas City, Missouri, and on north–south streets from St. John Avenue (or the Missouri River, in the River Market area). The direction 'South' in street and address numbers is generally implied if 'North' is not specified, except for numbered 'avenues' in North Kansas City. In the northland, east–west streets use the prefix N.E. or N.W., depending on the side of N. Main on which they lie.
The metro has several airports. Primary service is at Kansas City International Airport (MCI), 15 miles northwest of downtown Kansas City, Missouri. It was opened in 1972 as TWA's "Airport of the Future", a global hub for supersonic transport and the Boeing 747. A new single-terminal building was opened on February 28, 2023, to modernize the design, operations, and passenger experience.
The much smaller Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport, immediately north of downtown across the Missouri River, was the original headquarters of Trans World Airlines (TWA) and houses the Airline History Museum. It served as the area's major airport until 1972, when Kansas City International (then known as Mid-Continent International Airport and home to an Overhaul Base for TWA) became the primary airport for the metropolitan area after undergoing $150 million in upgrades that had been approved by voters in a 1966 bond issue. Downtown Airport is still used for general aviation and airshows.
Two general aviation airports are in Johnson County, Kansas. New Century AirCenter borders southwest Olathe and northeast Gardner. The primary runway at New Century AirCenter is the second longest runway in the region next to those at Kansas City International Airport. It is 7 miles (11 km) from the Logistics Park Kansas City Intermodal Facility. Johnson County Executive Airport has one runway on 500 acres and is the fourth-busiest towered airport in the state of Kansas.
Kansas City is a freight hub served by the BNSF, CPKC, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific. Kansas City Terminal Railway and Kaw River Railroad provide local interchange and switching service.
Amtrak Passenger service is centered at Kansas City, Missouri's Union Station and managed by the Kansas City Terminal. Daily long-distance services are Missouri River Runner with two round trips daily to Saint Louis, connecting to Chicago via the Lincoln Service; and Southwest Chief with daily service between Chicago and Los Angeles.
City buses operated by the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) provide most public transportation. The Metro Area Express (MAX) became Kansas City, Missouri's first bus rapid transit line in July 2005, and operates and is marketed akin to a rail system instead of a local bus line. The MAX links River Market, Downtown, Union Station, Crown Center, and Country Club Plaza. Buses in Johnson County, Kansas, are operated by Johnson County Transit, known as The JO.
The KC Streetcar is a 2.2-mile modern streetcar line in Downtown Kansas City. Opened to the public in May 2016, it is maintained and operated by the Kansas City Streetcar Authority, a non-profit corporation made up of private sector stakeholders and city appointees. A ballot initiative to fund construction of the $102 million line was approved by voters on December 12, 2012. The system runs between River Market and Union Station, mostly along Main Street, with extensions north and south under consideration.
There are no commuter rail services.
Intercity bus service is provided by Greyhound Lines and Jefferson Lines at the Kansas City Bus Station.
The architecture of Kansas City, Missouri, and the metropolitan area includes major works by many of the world's most distinguished architects and firms, including McKim, Mead and White; Jarvis Hunt; Wight and Wight; Graham, Anderson, Probst and White; Hoit, Price & Barnes; Frank Lloyd Wright; the Office of Mies van der Rohe; Barry Byrne; Edward Larrabee Barnes; Harry Weese; and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
Top 5 largest colleges by total enrollment (within the MSA)
List of institutions (including those in the CSA):
The metro public library systems include Kansas City Public Library (Missouri), Mid-Continent Public Library, Kansas City, Kansas Public Library, and Johnson County Library. Private libraries include the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum and the Linda Hall Library.
The Kansas City Star is the metropolitan area's major daily newspaper. The McClatchy Company, which owns The Star, also owns two suburban weeklies: Lee's Summit Journal and Olathe Journal.
The Kansas City Kansan serves Wyandotte County, having moved from print to an online format in 2009. Additional weekly papers in the metropolitan area include the Liberty Tribune, Sun Newspapers of Johnson County, The Examiner in Independence and eastern Jackson County, The Pitch, and the Kansas-Missouri Sentinel. The faith-based newspapers are The Metro Voice Christian Newspaper and the Jewish Chronicle. Dos Mundos is a bilingual newspaper with articles in Spanish and English, and Mi Raza magazine is the area's only weekly Hispanic publication printed in Spanish. The Kansas City Call is an African American weekly newspaper.
According to Arbitron, about 1.5 million people over the age of 12 live within the Kansas City DMA, making it the 30th largest market for radio and 31st for television according to Nielsen. The Kansas City television and radio markets cover 32 counties encompassing northwestern Missouri and northeast Kansas.
Television stations in the Kansas City metropolitan area, with all major network affiliates represented, include:
The Kansas City television market is in very close proximity to two other media markets, St. Joseph and Topeka. As such, most of the television stations in the Kansas City area are receivable over-the-air in portions of both markets, including their principal cities; likewise, stations from Topeka are receivable as far east as Kansas City, Kansas and stations from St. Joseph are viewable as far south as Kansas City, Missouri's immediate northern suburbs.
Over 30 FM and 20 AM radio stations broadcast in the Kansas City area, with stations from Topeka, St. Joseph and Carrollton also reaching into the metropolitan area. The highest-rated radio stations, according to Arbitron are:
Hispanics, who account for 8% of the market's population, are specifically served by three AM radio stations who broadcast in Spanish:
The Kansas City metropolitan area's largest private employer is Cerner Corporation. Cerner, a global healthcare IT company which is headquartered in North Kansas City, employs nearly 10,000 people in the area with a total workforce of nearly 20,000 people including global employees. In August 2014, the company announced its acquisition of competitor Siemens Healthcare. Cerner has several campuses across the area with its World Headquarters building in North Kansas City, Innovations Campus in South Kansas City, and Continuous Campus in Kansas City, Kansas.
Other major employers and business enterprises are AT&T, BNSF Railway, GEICO, Asurion, T-Mobile, Citigroup, EMBARQ, Farmers Insurance Group, Garmin, Hallmark Cards, Husqvarna, H&R Block, General Motors, Honeywell, Ford Motor Company, MillerCoors, State Street Corporation, The Kansas City Star, and Waddell & Reed, some of which are headquartered in the metropolitan area. Kansas City also has a large pharmaceutical industry, with companies such as Bayer and Aventis having a large presence.
These are among the largest companies and organizations, excluding educational institutions, that are headquartered in or have since relocated from the metropolitan area. Headquarters of most are located in Kansas City, Missouri.
The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank is one of twelve such banks located in the United States.
The USDA provides estimates of the number of trees by county in the Kansas City metropolitan area.
The five most common species in the region's urban and rural forest were American elm (28.9%), northern hackberry (14.0%), Osage-orange (7.2%), honeylocust (6.7%), and eastern redcedar (5.0%).
Many notable people through history were born in, or moved to, what is now the Kansas City metropolitan area.
The list from Kansas City, Missouri includes these: cartoonists Walt Disney, Friz Freleng, and Ub Iwerks; musicians Count Basie, Melissa Etheridge, Tech N9ne, and Eminem; Representative Emanuel Cleaver and historical city boss Tom Pendergast; actors Ellie Kemper, Don Cheadle, and Jason Sudeikis; reporter Walter Cronkite; pilot Amelia Earhart; and writer Ernest Hemingway. The list from Kansas City, Kansas includes actors Eric Stonestreet, Scott Foley, and Tuc Watkins; Kermit the Frog puppeteer Matt Vogel; West Side Story cinematographer Daniel L. Fapp; Marvel Comics writer Jason Aaron; sculptor and pioneering black pilot Ed Dwight Jr.; Negro leagues player Ed Dwight Sr.; and mass murderer Richard Hickock.
The list from Independence, Missouri includes President Harry S. Truman, Guns N' Roses keyboardist Chris Pitman, actor Arliss Howard, Devo co-founder Bob Lewis, self-freed slave and Oregon Trail pioneer Hiram Young, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough, actor Ginger Rogers, fantasy novelist Margaret Weis, television series creator Paul Henning, and black female Civil War soldier Cathay Williams.
From Overland Park, Kansas, this includes film directors Michael Almereyda (Hamlet) and Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw), actors Rob Riggle and Tom Kane, economist and writer Michael R. Strain, and eSports player Johnathan Wendel. From Lenexa, Kansas, this includes actors Paul Rudd and Jason Wiles, gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok, and autism researcher William Shaw. From Olathe, Kansas, this includes George Washington Carver. From Lee's Summit, this includes Bob, Cole, Jim, and John of the James–Younger Gang.