Check out the Guide to Manhattan, published by The Mercury. This is a free sample of the way our electronic edition works.

...or Manhappiness, or Manhappenin', or the Little Apple, or whatever you want to call it.

To us, it's home.

Manhattan is a small town by metropolitan standards. It's a city, by rural standards. So what is it? Good question.

It is many things:

Big-time college sports draw tens of thousand here to watch the Wildcats

It's a college town. Kansas State University is here, educating about 20,000 people every year in everything from fine arts to public relations to chemistry to engineering to farming and ranching. K-State brings in Big 12 sports, national-caliber speakers and serious-minded cultural events. There's a thriving nightlife here, as you might expect in a college town.

It's an Army town. Fort Riley is next door; many of the soldiers who train at the post to protect our nation live in Manhattan.

The First Infantry Division, known as the Big Red One, is headquartered at Fort Riley

It's a growth hub. With expansion at Fort Riley, Manhattan is becoming more of a regional center for retail, health care and recreation. Increasingly, it is a place people from around the region choose to visit, to shop, and to retire to.

It has about 50,000 people inside the city limits, and thousands more nearby. It sits at the confluence of the Kansas and Blue rivers, which is why it was founded here in about 1855. Tuttle Creek Reservoir sits just to the north of Manhattan, offering fishing, water sports and other outdoor activities.

Johnny Kaw statue in City Park: One oddball community landmark

If you're moving here, welcome, and if you're thinking about it or thinking about coming for a visit, we hope this website can be helpful.

TheMercury.com is mostly a news website, of course, but explore the site a bit and you'll find all sorts of helpful information about the community. If you have other questions, please feel free to contact us.