Study: Wichita is one of the most American cities in the country

Wichita is not just located near the geographical center of the U.S., it’s also at the center of demographic trends in the country.

The most American parts of the country are not the flyover parts of the Midwest, as politicians may proclaim, but the urban centers, and Wichita looks particularly like the country as a whole, according to a new analysis by fivethirtyeight.com.

The study compared each metropolitan area’s demographics, including age, educational attainment, race and ethnicity, and Wichita ranked eighth in the country. Oklahoma City ranked fourth, and Kansas City ranked 10th. The city most like America was New Haven, Conn., the home of Yale University; Tampa Bay, Fla., was second.

In a state comparison, Kansas didn’t fare so well. It did not crack the top 10 states most like the country as a whole, although it wasn’t in the bottom 10 either. The states that least resembled the country as a whole were Kentucky, West Virginia and Indiana, states that remain predominantly white.

The two cities that least look like America as a whole are El Paso and McAllen, two cities in Texas that are much younger and more Latino than the country as a whole.

The cities that ranked the lowest in the study were mostly white, older cities like Ogden, Utah; Lancaster, Pa.; and Chattanooga, Tenn.

The study also looked at what size cities tend to look the most American. Cities with 1 million to 2 million residents scored the highest, while cities with fewer than 100,000 residents tended to look the least like the U.S. as a whole.

This story was originally published April 29, 2016 at 10:17 AM with the headline "Study: Wichita is one of the most American cities in the country."