Kansas
County Codes

Kansas has a system of county codes used for identification of the home county of a state resident or company on license plates and state tax forms. In the area of vehicular traffic, these county codes are most often used to tell if the person who just nearly ran you off the road is an idiot from some other county or one of your neighbors. ;o)

 


The codes are two letters based on the first letter of and another letter in the name of the county. Sometimes, the letters chosen do not seem logical because they are not always the first two letters. For instance, the county code for Cloud County is not "CL", but "CD". The letters "CL" are actually assigned to Cowley County and "CO", which Cowley County could begin with, is not assigned.

These codes also make it somewhat easier to get that vanity license plate you really want. Each (legal) vanity plate can be assigned in each of the 105 counties. For instance, it is possible for "FATBOY" to be a plate "number" in all 105 counties at once. If you are really determined to get a particular plate and it is already taken where you live, all you have to do in Kansas is move to another county. ;o)

The two-letter code began appearing on Kansas license plates in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Prior to that time, the code was a number based on the order a county ranked in terms of population based on a census taken sometime in the 1920s. There is also a place on the address form of Kansas tax forms to place the county code.

From the early days of the system until about 1988, the two letters were stamped on the license plate on the far left side, one letter on top of the other. Since then, the letters are on a sticker that goes on the upper-left corner of the plate. Idaho has a similar system, but uses a number and letter in the code rather than two letters.

The 105 Kansas county codes are:

Allen County, AL
Anderson County, AN
Atchison County, AT
Barber County, BA
Barton County, BT
Bourbon County, BB
Brown County, BR
Butler County, BU
Chase County, CS
Chautauqua County, CQ
Cherokee County, CK
Cheyenne County, CN
Clark County, CA
Clay County, CY
Cloud County, CD
Coffey County, CF
Comanche County, CM
Cowley County, CL
Crawford County, CR
Decatur County, DC
Dickinson County, DK
Doniphan County, DP
Douglas County, DG
Edwards County, ED
Elk County, EK
Ellis County, EL
Ellsworth County, EW
Finney County, FI
Ford County, FO
Franklin County, FR
Geary County, GE
Gove County, GO
Graham County, GH
Grant County, GT
Gray County, GY
Greeley County, GL
Greenwood County, GW
Hamilton County, HM
Harper County, HP
Harvey County, HV
Haskell County, HS
Hodgeman County, HG
Jackson County, JA
Jefferson County, JF
Jewell County, JW
Johnson County, JO
Kearny County, KE
Kingman County, KM
Kiowa County, KW
Labette County, LB
Lane County, LN
Leavenworth County, LV
Lincoln County, LC
Linn County, LN
Logan County, LG
Lyon County, LY
Marion County, MN
Marshall County, MS
McPherson County, MP
Meade County, ME
Miami County, MI
Mitchell County, MC
Montgomery County, MG
Morris County, MR
Morton County, MT
Nemaha County, NM
Neosho County, NO
Norton County, NT
Osage County, OS
Osborne County, OB
Ottawa County, OT
Pawnee County, PN
Phillips County, PL
Pottawatomie County, PT
Pratt County, PR
Rawlins County, RA
Reno County, RN
Republic County, RP
Rice County, RC
Riley County, RL
Rooks County, RO
Rush County, RH
Russell County, RS
Scott County, SC
Saline County, SA
Sedgwick County, SG
Seward County, SW
Shawnee County, SN
Sheridan County, SD
Sherman County, SH
Smith County, SM
Stafford County, SF
Stanton County, ST
Stevens County, SV
Sumner County, SU
Thomas County, TH
Trego County, TR
Wabaunsee County, WB
Wallace County, WA
Washington County, WS
Wichita County, WH
Wilson County, WL
Woodson County, WO
Wyandotte County, WY

Trivia
Every letter of the alphabet is used in at least one code except "X" and "Z".

"J" is the only letter used as a first letter which is never used as a second letter in any code.

"Q"'s only use is in Chautauqua County's code. "I" is used only twice (Finney and Miami counties) as is "U" (Butler and Sumner).

No code contains two vowels.

There's no true convention for the selection of the letters. For example, Bourbon County is the only county that begins with "BO," yet the code "BB" was used.

"BB" is also the only code which uses the same letter twice.

In most cases, but not all as cited above, the only county that begins with two particular letters gets those letters. Exceptions are Decatur, Dickinson, Hodgeman, Leavenworth, Logan, McPherson, Norton, Pawnee, and Pottawatomie.

Five codes use consecutive letters of the alphabet (although only once do those letters appear consecutively in the county's name): Cloud, Graham, Marion, Neosho, Russell and Stanton.


Many of these pages have used information from Wikipedia as their basis. Other information has been added by site owners as it is found and as time permits . We also invite users to submit info to be added to the site.
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