Wichita Map
Wichita grew up where the Little Arkansas River joins the Arkansas in south-central Kansas, and it remains the largest city in the state by a wide margin.
Where is Wichita?
Wichita sits in south-central Kansas, about 30 miles north of the Oklahoma line and near the middle of the state east to west. The country around it is flat to gently rolling wheat and grazing land, which is why the city has been able to spread in every direction. Oklahoma City is roughly 160 miles south, Tulsa about 175 miles southeast, and Kansas City some 200 miles northeast. Topeka, the state capital, is about 135 miles northeast — closer than Kansas City but far smaller. Nothing of comparable size sits west of Wichita: from here to Denver, roughly 520 miles away, the map holds only small towns.
Wichita at a glance
| State | Kansas |
| County | Sedgwick County |
| Population (2024 estimate) | 400,991 |
| Rank among US cities | 52nd of the 100 largest |
| Time zone | Central Time |
| Region | Midwest — West North Central division |
Wichita in Kansas
Wichita is the seat of Sedgwick County and the only Kansas city in the country's hundred largest — it holds more people than Topeka and Lawrence combined, and the Kansas county map shows how thinly the remaining 104 counties are populated. Kansas City is a complication worth stating plainly: the large city of that name is on the Missouri side of the state line, and the Kansas side has its own separate Kansas City, which is not in the top 100. The Kansas state page covers the rest, including the state's split between Central and Mountain time — Wichita is firmly on Central.
The Arkansas River and the plains
The Arkansas River runs through downtown Wichita, and the Little Arkansas joins it just north of the center — the confluence is the reason a trading post stood here before the city did. Elevation is about 1,300 feet, low for the Great Plains but already about 400 feet above Kansas City. Wichita marks a real transition: the Flint Hills, the largest surviving stretch of tallgrass prairie in the country, rise immediately east, while the land west of the city dries out steadily toward the High Plains. The Arkansas is shallow and sandy here and has never been navigable this far up, so Wichita's growth came from cattle drives, then railroads, then aircraft — the city has built airplanes since the 1920s and still assembles them.
Cities near Wichita
Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Kansas City are the closest big cities, with Omaha to the north and Denver far to the west. Compare the state with its neighbors on the West North Central division page.