Parkville, MO

A Missouri River town platted in 1844 by George S. Park, home to Park University since 1875 and a genuinely historic riverfront downtown at English Landing Park — one of the few places in this cluster actually built along the river rather than set back from it.

Compare Neighborhoods → Jump to Neighborhood FAQ ↓

McKay Hall at Park University in Parkville, Missouri — McKay Hall at Park University, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Photo: Americasroof, CC BY-SA 3.0.

What Parkville is actually like

Parkville is named for George S. Park, who established a post office here in 1841 and platted the town in 1844; the city incorporated in 1858, per Wikipedia's Parkville entry. Park University, the private institution he founded, has operated in Parkville since 1875 and remains the city's defining institution.

The city's downtown sits directly on the Missouri River at English Landing Park, a 68-acre park established in 1987 with a 3-mile riverside trail, the historic 1898 Waddell "A" Truss Bridge, and a converted mid-19th-century coal-fired power plant now home to the Riverpark Pub, per Wikipedia's English Landing Park entry. That river frontage has a real cost: the park has flooded repeatedly, submerged under more than 15 feet of water during the Great Flood of 1993, with further damage in 2007 and 2019, per the same source.

Parkville has grown fast in recent years: Wikipedia's current population figure is 13,376, up sharply from 7,117 at the 2020 census, per Wikipedia — this file cites that figure honestly without over-asserting the precise vintage year behind it, since Wikipedia's infobox did not make that unambiguous. The city covers 15.576 square miles in Platte County.

Home values in Parkville

The median home in Parkville sold for $649,675 over the three months ending July 2026, up 7.0% year-over-year — the highest median in this cluster by a wide margin — per Redfin's Parkville housing-market data. (Zillow's own ZHVI page could not be reached this session — see this file's module docstring.)

Evenings and weekends

The Parkville Microbrew Fest is the city's best-known annual event — held every April at English Landing Park, described by its own organizers as "one of KC's largest beer festivals," with live music, craft beer and food, and a sellout every year since 2021, per the festival's own site. Year-round, Historic Downtown Parkville's antique shops, art galleries and riverfront restaurants, plus English Landing Park's 3-mile riverside trail, give the city a genuinely walkable evenings-and-weekends core that's unusual for this cluster.

Getting around

Parkville is a split story: the historic downtown and English Landing Park area are honestly walkable by this cluster's standards (a 51 out-of-100 Walk Score at one downtown-area address), while the newer subdivisions built up on the bluffs away from the river are car-dependent like the rest of the Northland. There's no Parkville-specific citywide Walk Score to cite either way, so treat this as a two-tier city: walkable core, car-dependent everywhere else.

Parkville FAQ

Who founded Parkville, Missouri?

George S. Park, who established a post office in 1841 and platted the town in 1844; the city incorporated in 1858, per Wikipedia's Parkville entry.

Does Parkville flood?

Its riverfront English Landing Park does — it was submerged under more than 15 feet of water in the Great Flood of 1993, with further flood damage in 2007 and 2019 — though residential areas on the bluffs away from the river carry much lower risk.

What school district serves Parkville?

Park Hill School District, which serves almost all of Parkville and enrolled about 11,992 students as of 2020-21.

Is Parkville walkable?

The historic downtown/English Landing Park area is genuinely walkable by this cluster's standards (a 51 out-of-100 Walk Score at one spot-checked address), but there's no separate citywide score, and areas away from downtown are car-dependent.

Nearby alternatives*

Gladstone

Gladstone sits east of Parkville across the Platte/Clay county line, both Northland suburbs north of the Missouri River.

Liberty

Liberty is northeast of Parkville, also in the Northland, on the opposite side of Clay County.

Independence

Independence sits across the Missouri River to the southeast — both cities anchor opposite ends of this metro's river frontage.

Compare Parkville to these side by side →

See what makes Kansas City stand out — verified, named medical, dietary, sports, and other specialty resources you won't find in most metros.

Explore Specialty Resources →

Quick facts

County: Platte County, MO
Transit: Walk Score does not publish a standalone citywide score for Parkville — it's too small to appear on Walk Score's ranked list of "the 48 largest cities in Missouri" — but a spot check near the historic downtown/English Landing Park area scored 51 out of 100 ("Somewhat Walkable"), with a 36 Bike Score, per Walk Score. The rest of the city, away from that historic core, is car-dependent like its Northland neighbors. Kansas City has no light rail or subway; regional bus service is coordinated under the RideKC brand. On the Missouri side, the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) runs about 78 local bus routes across a bi-state service area historically covering Cass, Clay, Jackson and Platte counties in Missouri plus Johnson, Leavenworth and Wyandotte counties in Kansas, including three Metro Area Express (MAX) bus-rapid-transit lines, per Wikipedia's KCATA entry. Johnson County, Kansas withdrew from KCATA's management agreement effective August 1, 2022, and now runs its own bus service (Johnson County Transit/RideKC) separately, still under the shared RideKC brand and fare system. KCATA ran fare-free from March 2020 through May 2026 before reintroducing a base $2 fare on June 1, 2026 to help preserve service levels.
Landmarks: English Landing Park and the Missouri River waterfront, the 1898 Waddell "A" Truss Bridge, Park University's hilltop campus, and the antique shops and galleries of Historic Downtown Parkville
Commute to Downtown: About 15 miles northwest of downtown Kansas City, MO via I-435 and MO-9 — typically a 20-25 minute drive, longer at rush hour.
Flood & storm risk: Meaningful flood risk for the riverfront downtown and English Landing Park, which sit directly on the Missouri River and have flooded repeatedly; low risk on higher ground away from the river.
more
Kansas City sits at the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas (Kaw) rivers, and the metro's defining flood event was the Great Flood of 1951, when both rivers crested at record levels in July 1951, inundating the West Bottoms and Fairfax/Armourdale industrial districts straddling the state line, killing more than a dozen people and causing roughly $1 billion in 1951 dollars in damage across the region, per the Kansas City Public Library's "Hell and High Water: The 1951 Kansas City Flood" exhibit. The flood led to a major federal levee-building program along both rivers that still protects the low-lying industrial river bottoms today. Parkville is the one city in this cluster genuinely built along the Missouri River rather than set back from it, and its flood history is well documented: English Landing Park, at the foot of downtown, was submerged under more than 15 feet of water during the Great Flood of 1993, and suffered further flood damage — including to equipment and a White Branch Creek bridge — in 2007 and 2019, per Wikipedia's English Landing Park entry. Residential areas built up on the bluffs away from the immediate riverfront carry much lower risk than the historic riverfront downtown itself. Confirm flood-zone status for a specific parcel via FEMA's Flood Map Service Center, since FEMA flood maps are drawn parcel-by-parcel and change as they're updated.
Terrain, sidewalks & stairs: Parkville is genuinely riverine in a way most of this cluster is not: the historic downtown sits right at the Missouri River's edge, with Park University's campus rising on the bluffs above it — real elevation change within a few blocks, unusual for this metro. Walk Score has no citywide figure for Parkville (it's too small for the ranked list), but the downtown/English Landing Park area scored 51 out of 100 ("Somewhat Walkable") at one spot-checked address, per Walk Score — meaningfully better than the rest of this cluster's citywide averages, though still not fully walkable, and the newer subdivisions built up away from the river are car-dependent like the rest of the Northland.
Nearest hospital: The closest full-service hospital is Saint Luke's North Hospital–Barry Road, 5830 NW Barry Road, Kansas City, MO — an 84-bed hospital several miles east of Parkville, per Wikipedia's entry; Parkville itself has a Saint Luke's urgent-care/multispecialty clinic at 6185 Jefferson Avenue for same-day, non-emergency care, per Saint Luke's own site, but that clinic is not a full-service hospital.
Property taxes: Missouri & Kansas rates →
Relocating here: Employers, licensing & the metro basics →
Zoning & HOA character: Local rules & HOA character →
Utilities: Electric service across almost the entire Kansas City metro, on both sides of the state line, comes from Evergy -- the utility formed by the 2018 merger of Kansas City Power & Light (KCP&L, itself tracing back to the 1882 Kawsmouth Electric Light Company on the Missouri side) and Westar Energy (Kansas's largest electric utility, formed from a 1992 merger of Kansas Gas and Electric and Kansas Power and Light). Evergy now serves more than 1.7 million residential, commercial and industrial customers across the western half of Missouri and the eastern half of Kansas, per Wikipedia's Evergy overview. Natural gas delivery across this cluster comes from Spire Missouri, the regulated gas utility that expanded into the Kansas City metro when The Laclede Group (parent of St. Louis's Laclede Gas Company, renamed Spire in 2016) acquired Missouri Gas Energy from Southern Union Company in 2013, per Wikipedia's Spire Inc. entry. Water and sewer service is billed locally by each city's own public-works or utility department rather than by a single shared regional water authority — no source names a unified metro-wide provider for this cluster, so confirm billing specifics with the city itself before assuming otherwise.

Metro context ▾

Weather facts for the whole metro are on the Kansas City metro snapshot →.

Schools

Park Hill School District, which serves "almost all of Parkville" plus portions of Kansas City and the smaller Northland cities of Houston Lake, Lake Waukomis, Northmoor, Platte Woods, Riverside and Weatherby Lake, enrolling about 11,992 students as of the 2020-21 school year, per Wikipedia's Park Hill School District entry.