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Kansas City
A river city at the bend of the Missouri
Kansas City grew at the great bend where the Missouri River turns east, near its confluence with the Kansas River, on bluffs that overlook the water. That junction, at the edge of the settled East and the open West, made it the jumping-off point for the wagon trails — the Santa Fe, Oregon, and California trails all set out from nearby — and later a railroad and stockyard hub. The city straddles the state line, with a smaller Kansas City, Kansas, across the river.
The Missouri River curves through a metro that spreads across rolling prairie and river bluffs on both sides of the Kansas–Missouri border. Long a center of cattle, grain, and rail, Kansas City is famous for barbecue and jazz, and it anchors a metro of more than two million at the meeting of two rivers in the heart of the country.