Kansas Facts: Geography, Climate, and Natural Resources
- Average annual temperature: 55 degrees
- Average rainfall: 27" a year, ranging from 40" in the southeast to 20" in the west. More than 70% of the annual percipitation falls between April 1 and September 30.
- The western half of the state has as many as 300 clear or partly clear days; 275 such days in the east.
- Kansas is a windy state; an average wind speed of 14 mph makes Dodge City one of the windiest cities in the nation.
- Kansas has five river systems and more than 50,000 streams large enough to be named. The Missouri, Kaw, and Arkansas rivers are considered navigable.
- There are 23 federal reservoirs in Kansas and 40 state fishing lakes. Kansas also has 43 wildlife areas.
- Amount the state's unique topographical features are the Flint Hills, a bluestem or tallgrass prairie in the east-central part of the state. It is the only extensive, unplowed tract of the true prairie remaining in the U.S. The Flint Hills were a natural habitat for buffalo, once estimated at 60 to 75 million.
- Chalk beds containing some of the world's most extensive specimens of pre-historic fossils are found in Logan and Gove Counties.
- Kansas is amoung the national leaders in wheat production. It would take a train stretching from western Kansas to the Atlantic Ocean to contain all the wheat grown in Kansas in a single year. Kansas grows 18.5% of all the wheat produced in the United States. Only seven nations produce more wheat than Kansas, which in 1982 produced a record 462 million bushels of wheat.
- Kansas has more than 30 million acres of cropland in production.
- Kansas has more than 6 million cattle and is among the leading producers of red meat.
- Kansas leads the nation in the production of helium, ranks 5th in the production of natural gas, and eighth nationally in petroleum production.
- Largemouth bass, bluegill, flathead catfish, Kentucky or spotted bass, striped bass, and walleye are amoung the species of fish found in lakes and streams.
- Sportsmen hunt a wide selection of game. Kansas boasts the largest flock of prairie chickens on the North American continent. Pheasants are Kansas' staple game bird. Other wildlife include quail, turkey, duck, deer, geese, rabbit, and squirrel.
KANSAS FACTS, Published by the Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh, 2nd Floor, State Capitol, Topeka, KS 66612