The earliest plans for the Wichita and Sedgwick County Area date back to 1870 when two traders, William Greiffenstein and D.S. Munger, filed plats in the government land office for the establishment of the City of Wichita. These two individuals were responsible for the original layout of some of Wichita's major streets, such as Main and Douglas, and the strict north-south and east-west lines that still characterize Wichita's street system today.

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It was some fifty years later, in 1923, that the first master plan for the City of Wichita was completed by a nationally known professional planning engineer, Harland Bartholomew, from St. Louis. Included in this plan were proposals and recommendations for improvements to the street system, transit, railroads, parks and civic art, as well as the establishment of Wichita's first zoning ordinance. Many of these original proposals were implemented and have contributed lastingly to the city's appearance and character.

Twenty years later, in 1943, the same firm was given the task of revising the plan to keep pace with the changing influence of the widespread use of automobiles, the production of airplanes, the war industry expansion, and the nationwide changes in economic conditions.

It was not too long thereafter that the city and county governments together realized that to be effective, planning could no longer continue at twenty-year intervals. In order to provide continuous planning the two governments, in 1951, independently created their own agencies to carry out the job of a continuous planning program.

By 1958, it had become apparent that the two separate planning agencies were creating a duplication of services and that a lack of coordination between the two commissions was hampering the effectiveness of both agencies. In that year, a decision was made to combine both agencies in an attempt to provide coordinated area-wide planning. A joint city ordinance/county resolution was adopted by the City and County Commissioners, establishing the Wichita-Sedgwick County Metropolitan Area Planning Commission (MAPC) and defining its area of jurisdiction (generally everything within the Wichita city limits and in the unincorporated portion of the county). At the same time, a joint agreement between the two governing bodies was adopted, which established the powers and duties of the MAPC, the membership and terms of commission members, and also established a city-county planning department to staff the MAPC.

Originally established as an eight-member board, with four appointees from the City and four from the County, the MAPC was expanded in 1973 to include five appointees from the City and five from the County, which is how it remained until 1991, when the two governing bodies amended the joint agreement again to each seven members.