St. Louis (city) - geography.IINTRODUCTIONSkyline of St. Louis, MissouriSt. Louis,

« St.

Louis (city) - geography. IINTRODUCTION Skyline of St.

Louis, MissouriSt.

Louis, Missouri, lies on the banks of the Mississippi River.

The stainless steel Gateway Arch dominates the city’s skyline.

The arch,which rises to a height of 192 m (630 ft), was built in 1965 to commemorate the role of St.

Louis as a gateway to the West.Owaki-Kulla/Corbis - geography. St.

Louis (city) or Saint Louis , city in eastern Missouri, extending along the west bank of the Mississippi River where it makes a great bend to the east.

The hub of the largest metropolitan region in Missouri, St.

Louis is one of the Midwest’s principal industrial, commercial, educational, and cultural centers.

It is a city of predominately brickbuildings, softened by abundant trees that line streets and shelter homes. St.

Louis is located a short distance downstream from the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Missouri River; the city is situated on land that gently rises from theriver shoreline.

Average elevation is 139 m (455 ft).

The city’s location in the middle of the North American continent gives it very changeable weather.

It is influenced byboth warm air masses from the Gulf of Mexico and cold air masses from Canada.

Annual precipitation averages 953 mm (37.5 in), with most of the rain coming in latespring and early summer.

Winter snowfalls account for about 500 mm (about 20 in) of the precipitation.

Winters, while cold, are rarely severe and summers can be quitehot.

The average high temperature in January is 3°C (38°F) and the average low is -6°C (21°F); in July highs average 32°C (89°F) and lows average 21°C (70°F). St.

Louis was established in 1764 by French fur traders and named in honor of Louis IX, a 13th-century king of France canonized as a saint.

In 1876 the state legislaturegranted St.

Louis a special status as an independent city and separated it from surrounding St.

Louis County.

This was done at a time when the city was wealthy andsurrounding rural lands poor, but fortunes have since reversed and St.

Louis now covets the tax base of its prosperous suburbs.

Attempts to rejoin the county have beenrebuffed. II ST.

LOUIS AND ITS METROPOLITAN AREA The city of St.

Louis stretches along the Mississippi River for 31 km (19 mi) and covers a land area of 160.3 sq km (61.9 sq mi).

St.

Louis has been expanding to the westalmost from the time of its founding, with its downtown core slowly moving away from the Mississippi and its population migrating to ever distant suburbs.

Today thecentral city is surrounded by a hodgepodge of small cities. The spectacular Gateway Arch stands at the river’s edge on the site where St.

Louis was founded more than two centuries ago.

The 192-m (630-ft) high city landmark,completed in 1965, is the focal point of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Historic Site and commemorates the city’s role as a major gateway to the West during the19th century.

Within the historic site, which has undergone large-scale redevelopment since the 1950s, are two noted 19th-century buildings: the Basilica of Saint Louis-King and the Old Courthouse, where the Dred Scott case, an early test of the rights of blacks, was argued.

Another extensive riverside project, also completed in the 1960s, was the 50,000-seat Busch Stadium.

It was replaced in 2006 by a new Busch Stadium.

Laclede’s Landing, a historic district along the river north of the arch, was convertedinto a zone of shops, restaurants, nightclubs, and other tourist attractions. The central business district—downtown St.

Louis—lies just west of the Gateway Arch.

Market Street, the main downtown thoroughfare, extends from east to west throughdowntown and separates the northern and southern sections of the city.

Just west of downtown, Market Street forms the main axis of Memorial Plaza, site of the majorpublic buildings in St.

Louis.

Dominating the plaza are the Civil Courts Building, City Hall, the recently renovated Henry W.

Kiel Municipal Auditorium, and the SoldiersMemorial Building.

Near Memorial Plaza is Aloe Plaza, the site of a magnificent group of fountains designed by noted Swedish American sculptor Carl Milles.

The WainwrightBuilding, a forerunner of the modern skyscraper, is in the downtown area; designed by Louis Sullivan, it was completed in 1891.

A convention center complex, America’sCenter, occupies redeveloped land on either side of Seventh Street on the northern fringe of the central business district.

The city’s professional football team, the St.

LouisRams, plays in the Edward Jones Dome at America’s Center.

Concerts and trade shows also take place inside the dome.

An urban mall, the popular St.

Louis Union Station,is located on the western edge of downtown.

Another downtown shopping mall, the multi-storied St.

Louis Centre, opened in 1984 but by the early 2000s had lost nearly allits tenants as customers preferred suburban malls.

Developers planned to convert the St.

Louis Centre into condominiums and retail space. North and south of downtown St.

Louis, tenements, row houses, and one-family dwellings merge with industrial areas.

Centered on Forest Park, in a section near the city’swestern limits known as the Central West End, are tall apartment buildings, mansions, and tree-shaded streets, all of which make up the city’s most fashionable residentialdistrict.

Overlooking Forest Park is Hospital Row, a group of medical buildings that constitute one of the nation’s leading medical centers.

North of Lindell Boulevard, whichforms the northern edge of Forest Park, is one of the city’s large areas of black population.

South of Forest Park are neighborhoods inhabited primarily by people of Italianand German descent.

The Anheuser Busch brewery in southern St.

Louis covers seven city blocks.

Nearby along South Broadway is Soulard Market, where fruits andvegetables from surrounding farms are sold.

West of the market, many of the elegant Victorian homes in the Lafayette Square neighborhood, formerly in decrepit condition,have been restored.

They date from the late 1800s, when St.

Louis was the fourth-largest U.S.

city. The St.

Louis metropolitan area consists of the city proper, six Missouri counties (St.

Louis, St.

Charles, Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln, and Warren), and five Illinois counties(St.

Clair, Madison, Clinton, Monroe, and Jersey).

It covers a land area of 15,865 sq km (6,125 sq mi).

The almost entirely urbanized St.

Louis County lies to the north,west, and south of the city and contains two-fifths of the area’s entire population.

Further out is a belt of economically varied incorporated cities, some quite small.

Claytonis the seat of St.

Louis County and the largest commercial and office center outside the city core.

Ladue and Chesterfield are upscale communities where many of theregion’s wealthiest families live.

Creve Coeur and Westport, commercial and industrial towns, are where many of the county residents work in office and industrial parks.

St.Charles County grew rapidly during the 1980s and 1990s as new subdivisions spread along Interstate 70.. »