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Missouri
State
Map
CountryUnited States
Admitted to the UnionAugust 10, 1821 (24th)
CapitalJefferson City
Largest cityKansas City
Government
 • GovernorMatt Blunt (R)
 • Upper house{{{Upperhouse}}}
 • Lower house{{{Lowerhouse}}}
U.S. senatorsKit Bond (R) Jim Talent (R)
Population
 • Total5,595,211
Language
 • Official languageEnglish
Latitude36°N to 40°35'N
Longitude89°6'W to 95°42'W
For the Native American tribe, see Missouri tribe.
For the North American river, see Missouri River.

Missouri (IPA: [məˈzʊri], /məˈzɝi/, /məˈzʊrə/, or /məˈzɝə/), named after the Missouri Siouan Indian tribe meaning "town of the large canoes", is a U.S. state in the United States with Jefferson City as its capital. It is considered by most of its inhabitants to be a midwestern state, but it has many Southern cultural influences. The state's nickname is the Show-MeState; the U.S. Post Office abbreviation for Missouri is MO and the state's general-admission public university has a main campus located in Columbia with the state's highly-selective public liberal arts university located in Kirksville. The Mississippi and Missouri rivers are the two large rivers which flow through this state.

USS Missouri was named in honor of this state.

History

Main article: History of Missouri

Originally part of the Louisiana Purchase, Missouri was admitted as a state in 1821 as part of the Missouri Compromise. It earned the nickname "Gateway to the West" because it served as a departure point for settlers heading to the west. It was the starting point and the return destination of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. During the Civil War, Missouri, a slave state, remained in the Union, but sentiment was split with a significant portion of the populace supporting the Confederate cause.

Law and government

Main article: [[:Law and Government of Missouri and List of Missouri Governors]]

The capital of Missouri is Jefferson City.

The current constitution of Missouri, the fourth constitution for the state, was adopted in 1945 and provides for three branches of government, the legislative, judicial and executive branches. The legislative branch consists of two bodies, the House of Representatives and the Senate. These bodies comprise the General Assembly of the State of Missouri.

The House of Representatives has 163 members that are apportioned based on the last decennial census. The Senate consists of 34 members from districts divided such that the population of each district is approximately equal.

The Judicial department consists of a supreme court consisting of 7 judges. Superior and inferior courts are also provided.

The executive branch is headed by the Governor.

Although neither major party has traditionally been dominant in Missouri, the Republican Party has been gaining strength there in recent years. Missouri has a longer stretch of supporting the winning presidential candidate than any other state, having chosen with the nation in every election since 1904 with the exception of Adlai Stevenson in 1956. In 2004, George W. Bush won the state's 11 electoral votes by a margin of 7 percentage points with 53.3% of the vote. Democrat John Kerry only won four of the state's 115 counties—St Louis City, St Louis County, Ste Genevieve, and Jackson County.

Geography

Missouri county borders
Main article: Geography of Missouri

Missouri's border physically touches a total of eight different states. It is bounded on the north by Iowa; on the east, across the Mississippi River, by Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee; on the south by Arkansas; and on the west by Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska (the latter two across the Missouri River.)

North of the Missouri River lie the Northern Plains that stretch into Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas. Here, gentle rolling hills remain behind from a glacier that once had extended from the north to the Missouri River.

The Ozark plateau begins south of the river and extends into Arkansas, S. E. Kansas, and N. E. Oklahoma. Springfield, Missouri in southwestern Missouri lies on the Ozark plateau. Southern Missouri is the home of the Ozark Mountains, a dissected plateau surrounding the Precambrian igneous St. Francois Mountains. It is in the Ozarks that a distinct dialect, often compared to that of residents in certain areas of Kentucky and Tennessee, still exists.

The southeastern part of the state is home to the Bootheel, part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain or Mississippi embayment. This region is the lowest, flattest and wettest part of the state. It is also the most fertile. It is here that one finds cotton and rice production. The Bootheel area was the focus of the great New Madrid Earthquake of 1811–1812.

Although now generally considered part of the Midwest, Missouri was once thought of as Southern, and still is by many Missourians today. For example, Mark Twain, who grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, in Life on the Mississippi described his upbringing as in "the South". Still, while larger cities, especially those in the northern part of the state (i.e. St Louis, Columbia, Kansas City) consider themselves "Midwestern", rural areas and cities further south (i.e. Cape Girardeau and Springfield) consider themselves more "Southern".

Additional topics

Transportation

File:MO00 706LEF.jpg
Current Missouri License Plate

Kansas City is still a major railroad hub for BNSF Railway, Norfolk Southern, Kansas City Southern, and Union Pacific. The state of Missouri also has two major airport hubs now as well with Kansas City International Airport and Lambert-Saint Louis International Airport. Several highways also traverse the state.

Interstate highways

United States highways

North-south routesEast-west routes
See also: List of Missouri state highways and Missouri Supplemental Route

Economy

State symbols
File:Wiki missouri.jpg
Greetings from Missouri

The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that Missouri's total state product in 2003 was $195 billion. Per capital personal income in 2003 was $29,464, 27th in the nation. Major industries include aerospace, transportation equipment, food processing, chemicals, printing/publishing, electrical equipment, light manufacturing.

The agriculture products of the state are beef, soybeans, pork, dairy products, hay, hemp, corn, poultry, and eggs. Missouri is ranked 6th in the nation for the production of hogs and 7th for cattle. Missouri is ranked in the top 5 states in the nation for production of soy beans. As of 2001, there were 108,000 farms, the second largest number in any state after Texas. Missouri also actively promotes its quickly-growing wine industry.

Missouri has vast quantities of limestone. Other minerals mined are lead, coal, Portland cement and crushed stone. Missouri produces the most lead of all of the states in the Union with most of these mines in the central eastern portion of the state. Missouri also ranks first or near first among the production of lime.

Tourism, services and wholesale/retail trade follow manufacturing in importance.

Demographics

Historical populations
Census
year		 Population
1810 19,783
1820 66,586
1830 140,455
1840 383,702
1850 682,044
1860 1,182,012
1870 1,721,295
1880 2,168,380
1890 2,679,185
1900 3,106,665
1910 3,293,335
1920 3,404,055
1930 3,629,367
1940 3,784,664
1950 3,954,653
1960 4,319,813
1970 4,676,501
1980 4,916,686
1990 5,117,073
2000 5,595,211

As of 2005, Missouri has an estimated population of 5,800,310, which is an increase of 40,778, or 0.7%, from the prior year and an increase of 203,627, or 3.6%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 115,403 people (that is 401,148 births minus 285,745 deaths) and an increase due to net migration of 69,669 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 42,690 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 26,979 people.

As of 2004, the population included 194,000 foreign-born (3.4% of the state population).

Race and ancestry

The racial makeup of the state and comparison to the prior census: Template:Racial demographics begin Template:Racial demographics White Template:Racial demographics Black Template:Racial demographics Asian Template:Racial demographics Amerindian Template:Racial demographics Other Template:Racial demographics Mixed Template:Racial demographics Hispanic Template:Racial demographics end

The five largest ancestry groups in Missouri are: German (23.5%), Irish (12.7%), American (10.5%), English (9.5%), French (3.5%). 'American' includes those reported as Native American or African American.

German-Americans are a large ancestry group present in most of Missouri. In southern Missouri, most residents are of British/American ancestry. The northern edge of the state also has a high proportion of residents of British and American ancestry. Blacks are a populous minority in the City of St Louis and central Kansas City and are also an important minority in the southeastern bootheel and the Missouri River Valley, areas where plantation agriculture was once important. Missouri Creoles of French ancestry are concentrated in the Mississippi River valley south of St. Louis.

6.6% of its population were reported as under 5, 25.5% under 18, and 13.5% were 65 or older. Females made up approximately 51.4% of the population.

3.4% of Missourians are foreign-born, and 5.1% speak a language other than English at home. The 1997 birth and death rates were:

Births:74,037
Deaths:54,322
Infant deaths:564

81.3% were high school graduates (higher than the national average) while 21.6% had a bachelor's degree or higher.

The mean commute time to work was 23.8 minutes. The homeownership rate in 2000 was 70.3% with the mean value of the owner occupied dwelling being $89,900. There were 2,194,594 households with 2.48 people per household. The median household money income for 1999 was $37,934 with the 1999 Per Capita Money Income of $19,936. There were 11.7% (637,891) Missourians living below the poverty line in 1999.

Religion

The religious affiliations of the people of Missouri:

Of those Missourians who identify with a religion, three in four are Protestants. There is also a moderate-sized Catholic community present in the some parts of the state; approximately one out of five Missourians are Catholics. Heavily Catholic areas include Kansas City and St Louis.

A number of religious organizations have their headquarters in Missouri, including the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, which has its headquarters in Kirkwood, outside St. Louis. Kansas City is the headquarters of the Church of the Nazarene. Independence, outside of Kansas City, is the headquarters for the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), and the Latter Day Saints group Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Springfield is the headquarters of the Assemblies of God. The General Association of General Baptists has its headquarters in Poplar Bluff.

Culture

There is an idiom "being from Missouri" which relates to the state's unofficial slogan: "show me" (which even appears on their license plates). People from Missouri have a reputation for being skeptical. (See [1] and [2].)

Important cities and towns

Missouri cities and geographic features
File:Kansascity.jpg
Downtown Kansas City Skyline
File:Stlmo.jpg
Downtown Saint Louis Skyline

Education

Missouri's public school system includes kindergarten to 12th grade and requires all children between the ages of 7–16 inclusive to be enrolled in a school. The University of Missouri is Missouri's statewide public university system, having campuses in Saint Louis, Kansas City, Columbia and Rolla. Additionally, Missouri has several regional public universities in different parts of the state, the largest being Missouri State University (after heated political debate in Jefferson City, the name was changed from Southwest Missouri State University in spring 2005) having the second largest student enrollment after University of Missouri-Columbia (commonly referred to as "Mizzou").

The state also funds a $2000, renewable merit-based scholarship, Bright Flight, given to the top 3% of Missouri High School graduates who attend a university in-state.

Colleges and universities

Professional sports teams

Minor leagues

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Missouri.

References

 United States</nowiki>

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