Kansas is one of the fifty states of the United States, located in the Midwest region. Its capital is Topeka, with the largest city being Wichita. The state of Kansas (named for the Kansa tribe) was first settled in the 1830s by pioneers from the east, and settlement escalated in the 1850s after it became legally open to settlement in 1854. Many abolitionists from New England and slavers from Virginia moved to the state to fight over its status as either a free state or slave state, leading to the Bleeding Kansas disturbances, and on 29 January 1861 Kansas was admitted to the union as a free state. After the American Civil War, new immigrants turned the prairie into farmland, and Kansas is currently one of the most productive agricultural states. In 2015, Kansas had a population of 2,911,641 people, with 83.8% being white (77.5% of them being non-Hispanic white), 5.9% African-Americans, 1% Native Americans, 2.4% Asians, .1% Pacific Islanders, and 3% multiracial. 57% of the population is Protestant, 18% Catholic, 1% Mormon, and 1% Jehovah's Witness, with 4% non-Christian and 20% unaffiliated.
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