Leawood City Map Poster

About Leawood

Leawood was founded in 1959, and most of the city was built between 1960 and 1990. It is one of the fastest growing cities in Kansas. The city has been named four times by "Money" magazine as one of its top 100 places to live; it ranked #1 for large cities in 2000, #6 for midsize cities (populations 50,000–300,000) from 2002 through 2004 and 2005 through 2007 editions; it ranked #8 among all U.S. communities with populations over 50 thousand from 2008 to 2010 editions (the highest ranking ever achieved by a Johnson County community). In 2009 "Forbes" listed Leawood as 18th-fastest growing suburb among suburbs nationwide with population growth greater than 1 percent per year since 2000.[5] The first known inhabitants were Native Americans who settled along the river valleys near present-day Leawood sometime before 1700 A D .[6][7] They lived mostly on buffalo meat obtained by hunting or fishing.