Missouri is a state in the Midwest region of the United States
of America. As a centrally located federal state, Missouri has
eight neighboring states: Iowa to the north,
Illinois, Kentucky
and Tennessee to the east (across the Mississippi River),
Arkansas to the south and
Oklahoma, Kansas and
Nebraska to the
west.
According to William Least Heat Moon, St. Louis is
the last city of the East and Kansas City is the first city of
the West. Missouri is popularly called the Show Me State.
Northeast Missouri - with Hannibal and Kirksville.
Northwest
Missouri - with St. Joseph.
St. Louis Region - metropolitan
area with the cities of St. Louis and St. Charles.
Kansas
City Region - metropolitan area including the cities of Kansas
City and Independence.
Central Missouri - with Jefferson City
and Columbia.
Southeast Missouri - with Ste. Genevieve,
Poplar Bluff and Cape Girardeau.
Southwest Missouri - is part
of the transstate Ozarks region with Springfield, Joplin, West
Plains and Branson.
1 Branson
2 Cape Girardeau
3 Columbia
4 Hannibal
5 Herman
6 Independence
7 Jefferson City—Capital.
8 Joplin
9 Kansas City
10 Neosho
11 Saint Joseph
12 St Louis
13 Sedalia
14
Springfield
Mastodon State Historic Site, Imperial MO, (636) 464-2976.
Ste.
Genevieve - first settlement with the oldest standing brick houses west
of the Mississippi River.
Lake of the Ozarks - reservoir.
Numerous interstate freeways and highways traverse the state:
Interstate 70 connects St. Louis and Kansas City via Columbia.
Interstate 55 follows the Mississippi River north from Memphis to St.
Louis.
Interstate 44 enters the state from Oklahoma and leads to St.
Louis via Joplin and Springfield. Most of the road follows historic
Route 66.
Interstate 35 runs northeast from Kansas City to Des Moines
and southwest through the Kansas suburbs of Kansas City to Wichita,
Kansas.
Interstate 29 runs northwest from Kansas City to
Omaha/Council Bluffs. The street begins or ends in downtown Kansas City
and runs parallel to US Highway 71.
US Highway 71 runs north-south
from Iowa to Arkansas through western Missouri, connecting Kansas City
and Joplin.
US Highway 60 runs through the south of the state,
connecting Kentucky and Oklahoma. There are only 60 miles of dual
carriageways between Cape Girardeau and Springfield. West of
Springfield, the short Missouri Highway 360 connects the US Highway to
Interstate 44.
The total area of Missouri is 180,533 km², which ranks it 21st among
all US states.
Along with Tennessee, Missouri has the most
bordering states. To the north is Iowa, to the east Illinois (across the
Mississippi), Kentucky and Tennessee, to the south Arkansas, and to the
west Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska (across the Missouri River).
North of the Missouri are the Northern Plains, which spill into Iowa,
Nebraska, and Kansas. The Ozark Plateau lies south of the river and
extends into Arkansas and Oklahoma. Springfield (Missouri) is the third
largest city on the plateau in the southwest of the state.
The
two largest cities, Kansas City and St. Louis, lie in the middle of the
western and eastern borders of the state, respectively, and form parts
of the interstate metropolitan areas of Kansas City and Greater St.
Louis, respectively.
Archaeological digs along the river valley have revealed continuous
habitation since about 9000 BC. Beginning before 1000 A.D., the people
of the Mississippian culture established regional political centers in
present-day St. Louis and, across the Mississippi River, in Cahokia,
near present-day Collinsville, Illinois. Their metropolises included
thousands of individual dwellings. However, for religious, political,
and social reasons, Cahokia is also known for its massive earthen
mounds, built as platforms, ridges, and cones, which are still extant.
Cahokia was the center of a regional trading network that stretched from
the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Civilization declined by 1400
A.D., and most descendants left the region long before the arrival of
Europeans. At one time, St. Louis was called the Mound City by
Euro-Americans because of the many prehistoric mounds that had been lost
to urban development. The Mississippian culture left mounds in the
middle Mississippi and Ohio River valleys and extended into the
southeast and upper river valleys.
The land that became Missouri
was part of many different territories from the 1600s until it became a
state, with shifting and often indeterminate boundaries and many
different Native American and European names. west of the Mississippi
River, which became Missouri for most of the early 1700s, In the early
1700s, French traders and missionaries explored the entire Mississippi
Valley, and in the early 1700s, the area was named "Louisiana, named the
area "Louisiana." Around the same time, another group of French
Canadians who established five villages on the east bank of the
Mississippi River placed their settlements in le pays des Illinois, "the
Illinois country." When the Habitants (French-Canadian settlers) began
crossing the Mississippi River and establishing settlements such as St.
Genevieve, their settlements were also placed in Illinois Country. At
the same time, French settlements on both sides of the Mississippi River
were part of French Louisiana. To distinguish the settlements in the
middle Mississippi Valley from the French settlements in the lower
Mississippi Valley around New Orleans, French officials and residents
called the middle Mississippi Valley La Haute Louisiane, "High
Louisiana," or "Upper Louisiana.
The first European settlers were
primarily French Canadians, who established the first settlement in
Missouri at what is now St. Genevieve, about an hour south of St. Louis.
They emigrated from Illinois around 1750. They came from colonial
villages east of the Mississippi River, where the soil was becoming
depleted and river-bottom land was scarce for the growing population.
The early Missouri settlements were populated by enslaved Africans and
Native Americans, and slave labor played a central role in both
commercial agriculture and the fur trade. Sainte Genevieve became an
agricultural center, producing surplus wheat, corn, and tobacco and
shipping tons of grain annually downstream to Louisiana for trade. Grain
production in Illinois was vital to the survival of lower Louisiana,
especially the city of New Orleans.
St. Louis was soon founded in
1764 by Pierre Laclade, a French fur trader from New Orleans, and his
stepson Auguste Chouteau. from 1764 to 1803, the area known as
Louisiana, from the Mississippi River west to the northernmost part of
the Missouri River Basin European control of the area was taken over by
Spain as part of the new Spanish viceroyalty under the Treaty of
Fontainebleau (a treaty that allowed Spain to join with France in the
war against England). The Spanish arrived in St. Louis in September
1767.
St. Louis became the center of the fur trade with Native
American tribes up the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and dominated the
local economy for decades. Major corporate traders shipped furs from St.
Louis down the river to New Orleans for export to Europe. They provided
merchants with a variety of goods to buy and sell to Native American
customers. The fur trade and related businesses made St. Louis an early
financial center, bringing wealth to build luxury homes and import
luxury goods. Located near the confluence with the Illinois River, St.
Louis also handled agricultural products from agricultural areas. River
transportation and trade along the Mississippi River were vital to the
state's economy. As the first major city in the region, St. Louis grew
significantly after the invention of the steamboat and the increase in
river trade.
Napoleon Bonaparte made Louisiana, a Spanish colony since 1762, a
French territory from Spain by the Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800.
However, the treaty was kept secret. Louisiana remained nominally under
Spanish control until the transfer of power to France on November 30,
1803, just three weeks before the cession to the United States.
As part of the U.S. purchase of Louisiana in 1803, Missouri served as an
important departure point for explorers and settlers heading west in the
19th century, earning it the nickname "Gateway to the West." St.
Charles, just west of St. Louis, was the starting point and return
destination for the Lewis and Clark expedition that ascended the
Missouri River in 1804 to explore western lands as far as the Pacific
Ocean. For decades, St. Louis was a major supply center for settlers
heading west.
Many of the early settlers in western Missouri
migrated from the Upper South, bringing enslaved African Americans as
agricultural laborers, hoping to continue their culture and slavery.
They settled primarily in 17 counties along the Missouri River, which
became known as "Little Dixie" because of the flat lands available for
plantation agriculture.
The state was hit by the New Madrid
earthquake of 1811-12. Casualties were low because of the sparse
population.
In 1821, the Missouri Territory was officially admitted as a slave
state under the Missouri Compromise and the state capital was
temporarily located in St. Charles; in 1826, the state capital was moved
along the Missouri River to present-day Jefferson City.
Initially, the western boundary of the state was a straight line defined
as the meridian through Cousemouth, the point where the Kansas River
flows into the Missouri River. Since this designation, the river has
moved. This line, known as the Osage Boundary Line, was added to the
northwest corner of the state in 1836 after the Platte Purchase land was
purchased from a Native American tribe, making the Missouri River the
boundary north of the Kansas River. This addition increased the area of
Kansas, already the largest state in the Union at the time
(approximately 66,500 square miles (172,000 km2) and 65,000 square miles
in Virginia, including West Virginia at the time).
In the early
1830s, Mormon immigrants from the northern states and Canada began to
settle in the area near and immediately north of Independence. Conflicts
over religion and slavery arose between the "Old Settlers" (primarily
from the South) and the Mormons (primarily from the North); the Mormon
War broke out in 1838; by 1839, Governor Lilburn Boggs' "extermination
order" forced the Old Settlers to expel the Mormons from Missouri and
confiscate their land, confiscated their land.
Conflicts over
slavery exacerbated border tensions between states and territories: in
1838-1839, a border dispute with Iowa over the so-called Honey Lands led
both states to muster militias along the border.
As immigration
increased, Missouri's population nearly doubled every decade from the
1830s to the 1860s. Although most of the new residents were
American-born, many Irish and German immigrants arrived in the late
1840s and 1850s. The majority were Catholic and established their own
religious institutions in the previously predominantly Protestant state.
Many immigrants settled in urban areas, creating a regional and state
network of Catholic churches and schools. 19th century German immigrants
started the wine industry along the Missouri River and the beer industry
in St. Louis.
While many German immigrants were strongly opposed
to slavery, many Irish immigrants living in urban areas were in favor of
it, fearing that freeing African American slaves would lead to an
overabundance of unskilled labor and lower wages.
Prior to the
Civil War, most Missouri farmers were subsistence farmers. The majority
of those who owned slaves had fewer than five per capita. Planters,
defined by some historians as those who owned 20 or more slaves, were
concentrated in a county called "Little Dixie" in the central part of
the state along the Missouri River. Tensions over slavery were primarily
related to the future of the state and the nation: in 1860, enslaved
African Americans made up less than 10% of the state's population of
1,182,012. To control flooding of farmland and low-lying villages along
the Mississippi River, the state completed construction of 140 miles
(230 km) of levees along the river by 1860.
When the secession of the southern states began in 1861, the Missouri
state legislature called for the election of a special convention on
secession. It voted against secession but expressed support for the
Union. In the aftermath of the Battle of Fort Sumter, pro-Southern
Governor Claiborne F. Jackson ordered the mobilization of hundreds of
state militia who had gathered at a camp in St. Louis for training. In
secret, he also requested Confederate arms and artillery to take the St.
Louis Arsenal. Alarmed by this action and learning of the Confederate
aid, General Nathaniel Lyons launched a preemptive attack, surrounded
the camp, and forced the state troops to surrender. Lyons instructed his
soldiers, primarily German immigrants who did not speak English, to
march the prisoners through the streets. How this riot began is
debatable, but it grew into violence and Union soldiers were killed by
St. Louis citizens. This entire incident is referred to as the Camp
Jackson incident.
These incidents sharpened the divisions within
the state. Governor Jackson appointed Sterling Price, chairman of the
secession convention, as the new head of the Missouri National Guard.
With Union General Ryan advancing rapidly through the state, Jackson and
Price were forced to flee the state capital, Jefferson City, on June 14,
1861. In Neosho, Missouri, Jackson convened a state legislature seeking
secession. However, the elected legislative body was split between
pro-Union and pro-Union factions. As a result, few pro-Confederates
attended the caucus convened in Neosho, and the secession ordinance was
quickly adopted. The Confederacy approved Missouri's secession on
October 30, 1861.
With the elected governor absent from the
capital and the legislature largely dispersed, the state convention
reconvened with most members present, except for 20 who had fled south
with Jackson's army. The convention declared all offices vacant and
appointed Hamilton Gamble as the new governor of Missouri. President
Lincoln immediately recognized the Gamble administration as the
legitimate government of Missouri. The federal government's decision
allowed for the raising of pro-Confederate militia units to operate
within the state and volunteer regiments for the Union Army.
Fighting continued between Union forces and General Price's Missouri
National Guard and Confederate forces from Arkansas and Texas led by
General Ben McCulloch. After winning the Battle of Wilson's Creek and
the siege of Lexington, Missouri, and suffering losses elsewhere,
Confederate troops retreated to Arkansas and later to Marshall, Texas,
in the face of largely reinforced Union forces.
Confederate
regulars made a major raid into Missouri, but fighting in Missouri for
the next three years was primarily guerrilla warfare. Captain William
Quantrill, Frank James, Jesse James, the Younger brothers, William T.
Anderson, and other "citizen soldiers" and rebels used rapid small unit
tactics. Pioneered by the Missouri Partisan Rangers, such insurrections
also occurred in some Confederate areas occupied by Union troops during
the Civil War. Historians have portrayed the story of the James
brothers' outlaw days as an American "Robin Hood" myth; the vigilante
activities of the Baldknobbers of the Ozarks in the 1880s, an unofficial
continuation of the rebel spirit after the official end of the war, are
a favorite theme of Branson's self-image The "Bald Knobbers of the
Ozarks" are a favorite theme of Branson's self-image.
The capital of Missouri is Jefferson City. Missouri is divided into 114 counties. The city of St. Louis is not part of a county.
Missouri's current constitution, the state's fourth, was adopted in
1945 and implements the separation of powers. Legislation takes place
through a bicameral system: a House of Representatives and a Senate.
Both together form the Missouri General Assembly. The governor is
entrusted with the management of government affairs, has the right to
pardon and also has representative tasks. The current governor is
Republican Mike Parson. Missouri has eight representatives in the House
of Representatives.
Since Missouri is located in the center of
the country and politically has north/south and west/east differences
and both large cities and rural areas, the state was often considered a
"bellwether" (German: "leithammel", "indicator") for the overall mood of
the United States (known as the Missouri Bellwether). From 1904 to 2004,
with the exception of 1956, Missouri always voted for the winning
presidential candidate, making it a classic swing state. However, no
Democratic candidate has won the state since 1996, which is why Missouri
is now considered a red state (Republican stronghold); Mitt Romney was
able to win the ten electoral votes in 2012 with a lead of over nine
percentage points over Barack Obama.
In its southeastern areas,
Missouri is also characterized by the foothills of the Bible Belt. Under
the administration of George W. Bush, Missouri was initially heavily
Republican. In the 2006 Senate elections, Democrat Claire McCaskill won
in a neck-and-neck race against her Republican opponent Jim Talent, but
after the 2010 House elections, six of the nine representatives were
members of the Republican Party. In the 113th Congress, Missouri lost a
seat; This was at the expense of the Democrats, who now only have two
representatives. Missouri has had ten votes in the Electoral College
since 2012, up from twelve in 1984.
The state police force is the Missouri State Highway Patrol. It reports to the Missouri Department of Public Safety. In addition, the police are organized at the county and municipal level. In addition to its role as a military reserve, the Missouri National Guard is also used for all kinds of emergencies within the country. It includes voluntary militiamen who report to the governor. During federal operations, the President of the United States is Commander-in-Chief. The Adjutant General of Missouri is Brigadier General Levon E. Cumpton. Separate from the National Guard is the state guard, the Missouri State Defense Force, which is solely committed to the state.
In June 2017, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People issued a travel advisory for Missouri due to numerous racist
incidents, racial profiling by police, and a new law in the state that
makes racial discrimination lawsuits more difficult. This was the first
such travel warning for a US state. It says, among other things:
Individuals traveling in this state should do so with extreme caution.
Crimes based on race, gender and color have a long history in Missouri.
Missouri, home of Lloyd Gaines and Dred Scott, the dubious honor of the
Missouri Compromise, and one of the last states where slavery became
history, may not be safe... The bill SB 43 legalizes individual
discrimination and harassment in Missouri and would prevent Missourians
from protecting themselves from discrimination, harassment and revenge.
Additionally, overzealous punishment of minor traffic violations has
resulted in African Americans being stopped 75% more often than whites.
In May 2017, African-American Tory Sanders from Tennessee died in a
prison in southeast Missouri after guards used pepper spray and a Taser
on him. Sanders had been arrested after becoming lost and had not been
charged with any crime. The law, SB 43, is described by critics as part
of Jim Crow laws.
According to the 2020 census, the population was 6,154,913. The
largest cities are Kansas City and St. Louis.
83.7% (5,058,971)
of Missouri's population are white, 11.7% (700,704) are black, 3.9%
(233,568) are Hispanic, 1.8% (107,800) are of Asian descent, 0.5 %
(29,944) are of Native American or Alaskan descent, 0.1% (5988) are
Hawaiian or Polynesian and 2.0% (119,778) are of heterogeneous ancestry.
6.2% of the population is younger than 5 years, 23.1% are under 18
years, 15.0% are 65 years or older. The female proportion of the
population is 51.0%. (Stand 2013)
The five largest ancestry
groups in Missouri are: German (27.4 percent), Irish (14.8 percent),
English (10.2 percent), American (8.5 percent) and French (3.7 percent).
6.1% of Missouri residents speak a language other than English at
home.
3.9% of Missouri residents were born abroad. 87.2% of those
over 25 have a high school diploma, and 25.8% of this age group have an
academic degree (bachelor).
The religious communities with the largest number of members in 2000 were the Catholic Church with 856,964, the Southern Baptist Convention with 797,732 and the United Methodist Church with 226,578 followers. Around 20% of the population is Roman Catholic; particularly in the areas of the cities of Kansas City and St. Louis. Baptists, Methodists and Lutherans - among which the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod plays an important role - belong to the Protestant denominations. Independence near Kansas City is seen by the Mormons as the future New Jerusalem; supporters of the smaller Mormon churches are particularly concentrated there.
The gross domestic product per capita (per capita GDP) was USD 49,383
in 2016 (national average of the 50 US states: 57,118; national ranking:
36). The unemployment rate was 3.4% in November 2017 (national average:
4.1%).
The most important industrial sectors are aviation
technology, logistics, agriculture and food industry, chemicals,
printing industry, electronics.
Agricultural production focuses
on beef, beans, pork, hay, corn, poultry and eggs.
Cotton and
rice are grown in southeast Missouri on the fertile plains of the
Mississippi.
Missouri has large reserves of limestone. Other
mineral resources include lead and coal. The construction industry is
supplied with cement and gravel from here.
Tourism and services
are other important industries.
The most important state universities are the University of Missouri with its main location in Columbia, the Missouri State University, the Missouri Western State University and the Southeast Missouri State University. The best-known private universities are Washington University in St. Louis and Saint Louis University. Other universities are included in the list of universities in Missouri.