POPULATION. The population by decades is as follows: 1860, 107,206; 1870, 364.399; 1880, 996.096; 1S90, 1,427,006; 1900, 1,470,495. In the last decade of the century the State fell from 19 to 22 in rank. The gain in that decade amounted to only 2 per cent., as compared with 20.7 per cent. for the tinted States. The State contributed largely to the settlement of the ad joining Territory of Oklahoma and also to the Indian Territory, and this is not a little respon sible for the smallness of the increase. The largest absolute gain was made in the decade 1870-80. In 1880-90 there was also a heavy gain —the result of the enormous 'boom' which visited the trans-Missouri region in the latter half of the decade, in consequence of which there was a great influx of population and capital for invest ment. Kansas being centrally situated and one of the last of the Mississippi Valley States to be settled, the population is more representative of every part of the country than of most of the other Western States, this condition being espe cially accentuated in the early period of settle ment. owing to the slavery struggle—both the North and the South having attempted to secure control of the field. Kansas contrasts with the
other :Nlississippi Valley States farther north also in the smallness of the foreign-horn population. \Nil lett amounted in1900 to only 126,685. Owing to its aridity, the western third of the State is very sparsely inhabited. For the whole of the State there is an average of 18 inhabitants to the square inile. There arc no large centres of population, and the percentage of urban population is con sequently small. In MO the 25 places which exceeded 4900 in population contained 19.2 of the total population. However. the increase made in the last do-ade of the century was wholly urban. cities.--Th, following was the population of the largest cities for the year 1900: Kansas City, Kan., 51.41S: Topeka. 33.608; Wichita, 24,671; Leavenworth, 20.735; Atchison, 15,722.
P.F.uctox. The Methodists are the largest reli gious body in the State. having more than twice the membership of any other Protestant denom ination. Among the large number of other sects represented, the most important are the Catho lice, Baptists, Presbyterians, Disciples of Christ, Lutherans, Congregationalists, and Friends.