Over half of Missourians (3,145,584 people, or 56.2 percent) live within the state's two largest metropolitan areas–St.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that Missouri's total state product in 2006 was $225.9 billion.
Areas with more numerous Catholics include St. Louis and the Missouri Rhineland, particularly south of the Missouri River.
The state also funds a $2,000, renewable merit-based scholarship, Bright Flight, given to the top 3 percent of Missouri high school graduates who attend an in-state university.
Missouri is also a bellwether on hot-button issues such as same-sex marriage and embryonic stem cell research.
More than the national average (81.3 percent) of Missouri residents were high school graduates, and 21.6 percent had a bachelor's degree or higher.
After the secession of Southern states began, the Missouri legislature called for the election of a special convention on secession.
The University of Missouri System is Missouri's statewide public university system; the flagship institution and largest university in the state is the University of Missouri in Columbia.
Missouri has many large river bluffs along the Mississippi, Missouri, and Meramec Rivers.
Missouri law also expressly allows parents and guardians to serve alcohol to their children.
Missouri state law allows bars and restaurants that seat less than 50 people, bowling alleys, and billiard parlors to decide their own smoking policies, without limitation.
Missouri has 114 counties and one independent city (St. Louis), which is the most densely populated area in Missouri.
Alcoholic beverages vary considerably in their ethanol content and in the foodstuffs from which they are produced.
Missouri Creoles of French ancestry are concentrated in the Mississippi River Valley south of St. Louis.
Forests cover about one-third of Missouri, mostly found in the Ozarks and along rivers, but the old-growth trees were cut down by settlers and loggers.
The five largest ancestry groups in Missouri are: German (23.5 percent), Irish (12.7 percent), American (10.5 percent), English (9.5 percent), and French (3.5 percent).
Several religious organizations have headquarters in Missouri, including the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod as well as the United Pentecostal Church International.
North of the Missouri River lie the Northern Plains that stretch into Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas.
Missouri voters rejected Prohibition in three separate referenda in 1910, 1912, and 1918.
Around 20 states have followed Missouri's decision by passing similar amendments.
The legislative branch consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate, which comprise the Missouri General Assembly.
In 1835, Michigan's first state constitution included a requirement for a Superintendent of Public Instruction at the state government level; this position created the first independent administrator of schools in the country.
From the 1830s to the 1860s, Missouri's population almost doubled with every decade.
Missouri has been known for its population's generally conservative attitude toward regulatory regimes.
More than 47 percent of Missouri is situated on the the Ozarks Plateau.
Missouri is ranked sixth in the nation for the production of hogs and seventh for cattle.
Missouri was long a state that voted for the conservative Democratic Party.
St. Louis is the principal city of the largest metropolitan area in Missouri, comprising 17 counties and the independent city of St. Louis; eight of those counties lie in the state of Illinois.
Missouri is ranked in the top five states in the nation for production of soy beans.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition left from St. Louis in 1804, following the Missouri River west, returning two years later.
Springfield in southwestern Missouri lies on the most northwestern part of the Ozark plateau.
Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto crossed into Missouri on his journey through the Southeast in search of gold, becoming the first European to see the state.
The Mississippi River and Missouri River are commercially navigable over their entire lengths in Missouri.
In 2006, Missouri had an estimated population of 5,842,713; an increase of 45,010 (0.8 percent) from the prior year and an increase of 246,030 (4.4 percent) since the year 2000.
Of those Missourians who identify with a religion, three out of five are Protestants.
The state is named after the Missouri River, which in turn is named after the Siouan Indian tribe whose Illinois name, ouemessourita (wimihsoorita), means "those who have dugout canoes".
The mammals found in Missouri include black bears, bobcats, coyotes, otters, deer, and beaver.
German Americans are an ancestry group present throughout Missouri.
Missouri was admitted as a slave state in 1821 as part of the Missouri Compromise, which was intended to keep the number of slave and free states equal.
Missouri also marks a transition between the eastern and western United States, with St. Louis often called the "western-most eastern city" and Kansas City the "eastern-most western city."
Missouri has a longer stretch of supporting the winning presidential candidate than any other state, having voted with the nation in every election since 1904 with the exception of Adlai Stevenson in 1956.
After the Civil War, Missouri population and economy grew rapidly, boosted by the railroads and by bridges connecting Missouri with Kansas and Illinois.
The others in the system are University of Missouri–Kansas City, University of Missouri–St.
The confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers is located near the city of St. Louis.
Kansas City is Missouri's largest city, and shares its metropolitan area with Kansas City, Kansas and its suburbs.
Democrats are now generally strongest among urban populations of Kansas City, St. Louis, and Columbia, home of the University of Missouri.
Located in the interior United States, Missouri often experiences extremes in temperatures.
The Missouri State Board of Education has general authority over all public education in the state of Missouri.
The constitution of Missouri provides for three branches of government: the legislative, judicial, and executive.
The counties that made up "Little Dixie" were those along the Missouri River in the center of the state, settled by southern migrants who held the greatest concentration of slaves.
Missouri generally has a humid continental climate, with cold winters and hot and humid summers.
The Mormon War erupted, and by 1839 the settlers had expelled the Mormons from Missouri.
After many incidents with Kansans crossing the western border for attacks (including setting a fire in the historic Westport area of Kansas City), a border war erupted between Missouri and Kansas.
The Missouri was channelized through dredging and jetties and the Mississippi was given a series of locks and dams to avoid rocks and deepen the river.
Among the tribes that came to live in Missouri were the Chickasaw and Mississippian in the southeast; the Oto, Missouri, and Ioway in the north; and the Osage in the south.
Here, gentle rolling hills remain behind from the glaciation that once extended from the north to the Missouri River.
No statewide smoking ban ever has been seriously entertained before the Missouri General Assembly, and only 20 percent of Missourians support such a statewide ban in public places.
In 2004, Missouri voters overwhelmingly (71 percent) passed an amendment to the state constitution defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
The pronunciation of the final syllable of "Missouri" is a matter of controversy, with significant numbers insisting on a relatively tense vowel (as in "meet") or lax ("mitt" or "mutt").
Only 3.4 percent of Missourians were foreign-born, and 5.1 percent reported speaking a language other than English at home.
People first arrived in the area now known as Missouri about 12,000 B.C.E.
Despite these differences, Missourians can generally be described as politically, socially, and religiously conservative.
African-Americans are a substantial part of the population in St. Louis, Kansas City, and in the southeastern bootheel and some parts of the Missouri River Valley, where plantation agriculture was once important.
Southern Missouri rises to the Ozark Mountains, a dissected plateau surrounding the Precambrian igneous St. Francois Mountains.
The seven-continent model is usually taught in Western Europe, Northern Europe, Central Europe, China, and most English-speaking countries.
In 2000, there were 2,194,594 households in Missouri, with 2.48 people per household.
Missouri was long a state that voted for the conservative Democratic Party.
The word "Missouri" often has been construed to mean "muddy water" but the Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology has stated it means "town of the large canoes," and authorities have said the Indian syllables from which the word comes mean "wooden canoe people" or "he of the big canoe."
Missouri is known as the "Show Me State". The 'Show Me State' expression may have began in 1899 when Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver stated, "I'm from Missouri and you've got to show me." The first successful parachute jump to be made from a moving airplane was made by Captain Berry at St. Louis, in 1912.
State AbbreviationsUS State:Abbreviation:MinnesotaMNMississippiMSMissouriMOMontanaMT63 more rows
While much of the state's history is tied to the mighty rivers that flow through it, the "Show Me State" got its nickname because of the devotion of its people to simple common sense. In 1899, Rep. Willard D. Vandiver said, "Frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I'm from Missouri. You've got to show me."Jul 28, 2017
Missouri State Flag. Centered on red, white and blue fields is the Missouri state seal. It is encircled by a blue band with twenty-four stars representing the number of states in 1821. The stars in the inner circle have the same meaning.
Official State Flag of Missouri. The two grizzly bears are symbols of courage and strength. They stand on a scroll bearing the state motto: Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto (Latin for "Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law").
The voters ratified the new constitution in 1945. Voters rejected calls for a constitutional convention in 1962 and 1982, and the Constitution of 1945 remains Missouri's current constitution. Since 1945, there have been more than 60 amendments to the Constitution.
The Missouri General Assembly is the state legislature of the State of Missouri and is composed of two chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The General Assembly is responsible for creating laws for governing the State of Missouri.
The Attorney General serves as the chief legal officer of the State of Missouri as mandated by our Constitution. The Attorney General is elected by Missouri voters, serves a four-year term, and is not subject to constitutional term limits.