It serves as one of the two county seats of Jackson County, along with the major satellite city of Independence. Sitting on Missouri's western boundary with Kansas, with Downtown near the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, the city encompasses about 319.03 square miles (826.3 km 2), making it the 25th largest city by total area in the United States. Confusion between the two ensued, and the name Kansas City was assigned to distinguish them soon after. On June 1, 1850, the town of Kansas was incorporated shortly after came the establishment of the Kansas Territory. Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a port on the Missouri River at its confluence with the Kansas River from the west.

Most of the city lies within Jackson County, with portions spilling into Clay, Cass, and Platte counties. It is the urban central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Missouri– Kansas state line and has a population of 2,392,035. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090, making it the 37th most-populous city in the United States. Kansas City, Missouri ( KC or KCMO) is the most populous city in Missouri and largest by area.

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