Wichita is the biggest city in Kansas, a state right in the middle of the United States. Its story explains why Americans mention it. In the 1870s it sat on the Chisholm Trail, the road cowboys used to drive cattle north from Texas, so it grew fast as a rough, busy cattle town — this is where the old cowboy picture of America comes from. Later it turned into something very different: aircraft factories. Wichita has built so many small planes that people call it the Air Capital of the World, and companies like Cessna, Beechcraft and Learjet have their roots there. The name also belongs to a Native American people, the Wichita, and to their language. In American speech the city often carries a second meaning: it stands for the ordinary middle of the country, far from New York or Los Angeles — so a speaker may say "How will this sound in Wichita?" meaning "How will normal people far from the big cities take this?" It is said WITCH-i-taw. Many learners meet the word first through the song "Wichita Lineman", which is why it sounds familiar even to people who could not find it on a map.