Kansas City or K.C. is a city of 464,310 people and largest municipality in the U.S. state of Missouri. It is the central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area, a region that spans the border between Missouri and Kansas. Founded in the 1830s as a port on the Missouri River and originally called Kansas, this became confusing upon the establishment of Kansas Territory in 1854, creating the name Kansas City to distinguish the two. Sitting on the western border of Missouri, with downtown near the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, the modern city encompasses 316 square miles (820 km2) in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties. It is one of two county seats of Jackson County. The 18th and Vine Neighborhood gave birth to the musical styles of Kansas City jazz and Kansas City blues. It is also known for Kansas City-style barbecue. The area is infamous for the Border War that occurred during the American Civil War, including the Battle of Westport and Bleeding Kansas. Large suburbs include Independence and Lee's Summit in Missouri and Overland Park, Olathe and Kansas City in Kansas.

The first documented European visit to Kansas City was Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont, who was also the first European to explore the lower Missouri River. Criticized for his handling of a Native American attack on Fort Détroit, he had deserted his post as commander of the fort and was avoiding the French authorities. Bourgmont lived with a Native American wife in the Missouri village about 90 miles (140 km) east near Brunswick, Missouri, and illegally traded furs.
In order to clear his name, he wrote "Exact Description of Louisiana, of Its Harbors, Lands and Rivers, and Names of the Indian Tribes That Occupy It, and the Commerce and Advantages to Be Derived Therefrom for the Establishment of a Colony" in 1713 followed in 1714 by "The Route to Be Taken to Ascend the Missouri River." In the documents he describes the junction of the "Grande Riv[ière] des Cansez" and Missouri River, being the first to refer to them by those names. French cartographer Guillaume Delisle used the descriptions to make the first reasonably accurate map of the area.
The Spanish took over the region in the Treaty of Paris (1763), but were not to play a major role in the area other than taxing and licensing all traffic on the Missouri River. The French continued their fur trade on the river under Spanish license. The Chouteau family operated under the Spanish license at St. Louis in the lower Missouri Valley as early as 1765, but it would be 1821 before the Chouteaus reached Kansas City, when François Chouteau established Chouteau's Landing.