 However, a north-south split was deemed necessary because the state's three major metropolitan areas (Kansas City, Topeka, and Wichita), and consequently, most of the state's landlines, are all in the east.The two area code configuration of Kansas remained unchanged for more than 40 years.By the mid-1990s, the proliferation of cell phones, the growing population in the Kansas City metropolitan area (most notably Johnson County and Overland Park), and deregulation due to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the exchanges for area code 913 were quickly being exhausted.