The current flag of Kansas was designed by Hazel Avery in 1925 and was officially adopted on 23rd of March in 1927. It is a plain blue bunting and shows in the middle, on a disc, the central elements of the state seal and above a sunflower on a yellow-blue torse. The state seal shows a landscape with a sunrise, a farmer ploughing (agriculture), a river (Kansas River) with a paddle steamer (trade), two covered wagons on their way west (settlement) and a herd of buffalo being hunted by two Indians on horseback (history). In the sky of the landscape appear 34 stars and a banner with the country's motto: "Ad Astra per Aspera" (To the Stars through Difficulties). Kansas was the 34th state to join the Union in 1861. The sunflower is the state flower of Kansas. Hence the state's nickname, the "Sunflower State". The yellow and blue torse is intended to commemorate the Louisiana Purchase, when French Louisiana was sold from France to the USA in 1803. Since 1961, the name of the state has appeares below the seal in golden letters. Kansas also has a state banner. It shows a single-coloured blue bunting with a sunflower in the centre. The state banner was created in 1925, officially adopted in 1927 and was redesignated in 1953. The banner is neither higher nor lower in rank than the state flag. It is said to have been designed as a variant of the state flag, which can be easily and quickly hoisted or hang vertically.
ca. 9000 B.C. · settlement by Indians (Pawnee, Kansa, Osage, Kiowa, Apache, Comanche)
1540–1542 · the Spaniard Francisco Vásquez de Coronado crosses the territory of present-day Kansas
1673 · French expedition under Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet
1740 · French expedition of the brothers Mallet
1744 · establishment of a French trading post on the Missouri River, gradual French colonization, to French-Louisiana
1763 · Peace of Paris, France has to cede the Louisiana Colony to Spain and United Kingdom, large areas (up to the Mississippi River, including Kansas) become Spanish possession
1st of October 1800 · Treaty of San Ildefonso, Spain has to cede back the Louisiana Territory to France and has to withdraw to the borders of 1763
1803 · France sells Louisiana to the USA
1804–1806 · the US-american Lewis and Clark Expedition crosses the area
26th of March 1804 · today's Kansas is part of the Louisiana Territory
1806 · the US-american Pike expedition crosses the territory
7th of December 1812 · today's Kansas is part of the Missouri Territory
30th of May 1854 · Kansas-Nebraska Act, Nebraska and Kansas become territories of the USA, capital of Kansas: Fort Leavenworth
1854 · Shawnee Mission is Capital
1855 · Pawnee is capital
1855 · Lecompton is capital
1858 · Topeka is capital
29th of January 1861 · Kansas becomes the 34th state of the USA
The name "Kansas" comes from the vocabulary of the Sioux Indians, and goes back to the name of the Kansa tribe. The word means "people of the south wind".
