Kansas City Union Station in the context of Science City at Union Station

The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its fourteen counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (nine counties) and Kansas (five counties). The 8,472 square miles (21,940 km) 2024 estimated census calculated a population of more than 2.2 million people, it is the second-largest metropolitan area centered in Missouri (after Greater St. Louis) and is the largest metropolitan area in Kansas, though Wichita is the largest metropolitan area centered in Kansas. Alongside Kansas City, Missouri, these are the suburbs with populations above 100,000: Overland Park, Kansas; Kansas City, Kansas; Olathe, Kansas; Independence, Missouri; and Lee's Summit, Missouri.

Cultural attractions include the American Jazz Museum, the Kansas City Symphony, Kansas City Union Station, the National World War I Museum, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, the National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Arabia Steamboat Museum, Uptown Theater, Midland Theatre, the Kansas City Zoo, Swope Park (featuring Starlight Theater), Sandstone Amphitheater, the Kansas City Renaissance Festival, Worlds of Fun, Oceans of Fun, the College Basketball Experience, the NWSL’s Kansas City Current, and several casinos. Major league sports franchises include the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs, the MLB's Kansas City Royals, and the MLS's Sporting Kansas City. The Kansas Speedway is owned by NASCAR.

The Laugh-O-Gram Studio (also Laugh-O-Gram Films) was an Independent American animation studio founded by Walt Disney on June 28, 1921 and closed on October 16, 1923. It was located on the second floor of the McConahay Building in Kansas City, Missouri, as a key early venture for Disney and his recruited pioneers of animation, including Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and Friz Freleng.

The company was incorporated to produce a series of contracted animated shorts called Newman's Laugh-O-Grams. Disney was encouraged by their local popularity, and began producing his own series of modernized fairy tale cartoons, including Little Red Riding Hood. The studio secured a contract for six shorts with Pictorial Clubs, Inc., of Tennessee, but the distributor paid only a small advance before going bankrupt. The loss of income crippled Laugh-O-Gram financially, forcing Disney to live in the office and bathe weekly at Union Station. A final project, a dental hygiene film called Tommy Tucker's Tooth, funded Disney's production of Alice's Wonderland, which combines live-action and animation in a last resort to create a successful franchise.