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.
Linxia County, which belongs to Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, is located in the central part of Gansu Province, southwest of Linxia Prefecture, bordering Linxia City, Dongxiang County and Hezheng County in the east, Gannan Cooperative City and Xiahe County in the south, Xunhua County in Qinghai Province in the west, Jishishan County in the northwest, and Yongjing County in the north across the river. The county is 53.1km wide from east to west and 59.85km from north to south, with a total area of 1212.4 square kilometers. It has jurisdiction over 6 towns, 19 townships and 2 ethnic townships, with a total of 219 administrative villages, 2101 villagers' groups, 2 neighborhood committees and 11 resident groups. The total population of the county is 386900 (2011), including Han nationality, Hui nationality, Dongxiang nationality,