The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With 8,472 square miles (21,940 km2) and 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.
Heshan City, a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous region, is a new industrial and mining city hosted by Laibin City, which is located in the west, southeast and west of Laibin City and connected with Xingbin District. Heshan has convenient transportation, National Highway 322 Nanliu Secondary Highway runs through the north and south of the city, more than 50 kilometers east of Nanliu Expressway; the railway is connected with the Hunan-Guangxi railway trunk line; shipping can reach Guigang, Wuzhou, Guangzhou and Hong Kong and Macao. Heshan City was awarded the title of "Top Ten counties (cities) in Guangxi Economic Development" in 2003 and 2005, and entered the list of "100 counties and cities with the fastest improvement in the basic competitiveness of China's county economy" in 2004. In March 2009, Heshan was listed as one of the second batch of 32 resource-exhausted cities by the State Council. After the transformation, it has received strong support from government funds and projects at all levels.