Missouri’s largest metropolitan area, offers an abundant array of sights and attractions for both locals and visitors. Kansas City is an arts mecca, home to the impressive Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, boasting the world’s largest Asian art collection, and abundant public art in the form of outdoor sculptures and fountains. In fact, Kansas City boasts so many fountains that it rivals Rome for most water features.

Downtown Kansas City and its surrounding vicinity host the majority of the city’s sights, but appealing destinations are also sprinkled throughout the outlying boundaries of Kansas City as a result of continuing suburban sprawl.

Attractions range from significant examples of local architecture, namely art deco and Beaux Arts, to strongholds of history and culture that reflect the city’s diversity and roots as a 19th-century metropolis built on agriculture, stockyards, and the unyielding iron of railroad tracks.

Modern iconic buildings like the Sprint Center and downtown Kansas City Library represent a sweeping renaissance that’s transformed the city’s urban core into a bustling mix of shops, restaurants, attractions, and businesses, a long-anticipated contrast to the desolate, empty buildings that were a common sight in earlier decades.

The city’s playful side emerges in an energetic mix of water parks, the Kansas City Zoo, and the Kansas Speedway, a high-octane destination that’s a must-see for members of the NASCAR nation.

Kansas City’s Best Sights

• Best Local Monument: The Liberty Memorial
• Best Local Landmark: Union Station
• Best Tour: Boulevard Brewing Co.
• Best Public Art: The Kansas City Library
• Best View: The City Hall Observation Deck
• Best Non-Art Museum: The American Jazz Museum
• Best Historic Discovery: The Arabia Steamboat Museum
• Best Interactive Museum: The College Basketball Experience
• Best Local Export: The Hallmark Visitors Center
• Best Water Feature: The J. C. Nichols Memorial Fountain
• Best Place to Spend a Day: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
• Best Reason to Skip the Nelson: The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art