Overland Park City, Missouri is a suburb of the bigger city of Kansas City and is located in Johnson County. The city of Overland Park is surrounded by the cities of Lenexa, Olathe, Leawood and Prairie Village. It is Kansas City's biggest suburb.
The founder of Overland Park was William B. Strang Jr., who established the city in 1905. He envisioned communities of subdivisions which were self-sustaining and "park-like". One of these was Overland Park, a successful experiment which saw continuing growth up to its incorporation as a city in 1960. Overland Park boomed throughout the 1980s as the number of residents and companies skyrocketed. By the end of that decade, the population was more than 100,000.
The cities of Kansas and Overland Park have quite a few attractions to offer its people and visitors. The Nerman Museum has a large selection of contemporary art. The New Theatre Restaurant is a famed place which has been called "the best dinner theatre in the country." The Overland Park Arboretum & Botanical Gardens provides a spectacular series of gardens accessible by trails on a 300-acre site which consists of waterfalls and a children's discovery garden. The Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead is a favorite with children who can take a ride on a horse-drawn wagon, see farm animals and tour an early-20th century replica of a farmhouse.
Overland Park has 72 city parks totaling about 7.3 km2 of space. Numerous parks have facilities for biking and hiking, playgrounds, sand volleyball, basketball courts and tennis courts. Some have reservable shelters.
The city of Overland Park has the biggest mall in the region, the Oak Park Mall. It features over 200 stores and is the biggest mall in the states of Missouri and Kansas. The city of Overland park is the home of Sprint Nextel world head office, that employs around 18,500 individuals and occupies 1 kmò of the city. Lots of Fortune 500 companies have headquarters here, such as Black & Veatch, YRC Worldwide, Waddell & Reed, Examinetics, Ash Grove Cement Company and Ferrellgas.
The education sector in the city provides a lot of jobs within Overland Park. There is the Johnson County Community College and the Blue Valley, Shawnee Mission, Spring Hill and Olathe School districts.