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Kansas is a Midwestern state in the Central United States. It is located in the heartland of the country and home to the geographical center of it. Kansas is bordered by Nebraska on the north; Missouri on the east; Oklahoma on the south; and Colorado on the west. It is located equidistant from the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean. The state, lying in the great central plain of the United States, has a generally flat or undulating surface, and on a large scale is almost perfectly flat. Even so, the land displays a gradual slope up from east to west.
The eastern two-thirds of Kansa has a humid continental climate, with cold winters and hot summers. Most of the precipitation falls in the summer and spring. The western one-third of the state has a semiarid steppe climate. Summers are hot, and often very hot. Winters are cold in the northwest and cool to mild in the southwest. The region is semiarid, receiving on average only about 16 inches of precipitation per year. Chinook winds in the winter can warm western Kansas all the way into the 80 degree F range. The far south central and southeastern reaches of the state have a humid subtropical climate, with long, hot summers and short, mild winters and much more precipitation than the rest of the state. Kansas is the 9th or 10th sunniest state in the country, depending on the source.
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