The capital of the state of Missouri is Jefferson City although Kansas City is its largest city. Saint Louis is the largest metropolitan area. Other important cities are Springfield, site of Missouri State University; Columbia, home to the University of Missouri at Columbia; and, Rolla, location of University of Missouri-Rolla.

Historical cities include Sainte Genevieve, the oldest permanent European settlement west of the Mississippi River; Saint Joseph, where Pony Express started; and, Saint Charles, the beginning of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the first state capital. Branson is a major tourist destination.

Missouri is rightfully a Midwestern state by having more neighbors than any other state in the Union: Iowa on the north; Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee on the east across Mississippi River; Arkansas on the south; and Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska on the west – the latter two across the Missouri River. Early Missouri served as a departure point for settlers heading to the west; hence it was called "Gateway to the West."

Again Missouri is generally considered part of the Midwest, but the apparently oblivious Mark Twain, would describe his upbringing in Hannibal as in "the South." And the great author has company in residents of rural areas and cities further south like Cape Girardeau and Springfield who consider themselves more "Southern".

Missouri's uncanny nickname 'Show Me State' has distinctive bearing on the devotion of the Missourians to simple common sense. Profoundly, Rep. Willard D. Vandiver in 1899 said, "Frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I'm from Missouri. You've got to show me."

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