Missouri Seal

Missouri Geography and Economy

The state Missouri is a US state of Midwest of the United States. The capital is Jefferson City. The common abbreviation for the state is MO . Missouri was named after the Missouri River, which in turn takes its name from the Missouri Indian people. The word Missouri comes from their neighbors, the Illinois people, whom they call wi-mihs-oor-ita , which means “the one with the wooden canoes”.

Missouri is popularly known as the Show-Me State , although the origin of this phrase is not entirely clear. Today, the phrase mainly serves the cliché that the people from Missouri are steadfast, conservative and suspicious.

Area 180,533 km²
Residents 6,093,000
Residents per km² 33.8
Capital Jefferson City
Postal Code MO
ISO-3166-2 code US MO
FIPS code 28

Geography

The total area of ​​Missouri is 180,533 km², which makes it 21st of all US states.

Abbreviated as MO by AbbreviationFinder, Missouri has the most riparian states on par with Tennessee. To the north lies 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).

The two largest cities, Kansas City and St. Louis, are each centrally located on the western and eastern borders of the state and form parts of the interstate metropolitan regions of Kansas City and Greater St. Louis.

History

Missouri national territory was part of the area that was bought from France as Louisiana. Missouri, which got its name from its historic residents, the Missouri Indian people, became a state in 1821 as part of the Missouri Compromise. Missouri was also known as the “Gateway to the West” because it was a transit country for settlers on their way to the west.

Wilson Creek Battlefield in Missouri

Economy

The gross domestic product 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 branches of industry are aviation technology, logistics, agriculture and the food industry, chemistry, printing industry, electronics.

Agricultural production is focused on beef, beans, pork, hay, corn, poultry and eggs.

In southeast Missouri in the fertile plains of the Mississippi, cotton and rice are grown.

Missouri has large reserves of limestone. Other natural resources are lead and coal. The construction industry is supplied with cement and gravel from here.

Tourism and services are other important industries.

Middle West

The Midwest is a region of the United States. The name arose in the 19th century from the need to distance oneself from the east coast, hence “west” – but not as far to the west as the frontier at that time ( wild west ).

The Midwest is also known as the ” Heartland of America ” due to its important role in industry and agriculture.

Demarcation

The delimitation of the Midwest is not precisely defined. According to the division of the U.S. Census Bureau, the following states belong to the statistical region, which is divided into two divisions (arranged from west to east, each starting in the north):

West North Central Division

North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri

East North Central Division

Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio

North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas are counted as part of the Midwest if the categorization does not include a “ Great Plains ” region. Mostly Missouri and occasionally Kentucky or West Virginia are considered as states of the Midwest, alternatively they are counted among the southern states. (They did not belong to the Confederate States of America, but allowed slavery until the Civil War.)

Pennsylvania is also rarely referred to as a state of the Midwest because the state has no coast to the Atlantic Ocean, and part of it is also west of the Appalachians. For the area around Pittsburgh and Erie this classification is halfway understandable, but not for the state as a whole, since the eastern half around Philadelphia has little in common historically and geographically with the Midwest.

Geography and economics

The area of ​​the Midwest is largely shaped by the glacier advances of various ice ages (Laurentide Ice Sheet). Especially in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota many lakes were created and the terrain is mostly flat in Illinois and northern Indiana as well as in Ohio. Towards the south and west, where the glacier times are a long time ago, the landscape becomes slightly hilly due to erosion up to the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers as well as the Shawnee Hills, the Ozark Mountains and the Badlands of South Dakota. Due to the glacier periods, the soils in this region are very fertile. If the climate allows sufficient growth time, agriculture (grain, maize, livestock farming) is very intensive in this region.

The big cities in the region are industrial. The region around the “car city” Detroit, which still belongs to the Rust Belt, the traditional focus of American heavy industry, as well as the supplier industry (steel, tires) around Cleveland must be mentioned. These cities were badly affected by industrial structural change and are therefore struggling with unemployment and social problems.

The Chicago metropolitan area has a broader economic base – in addition to the steel industry in the southern part of the city (around Lake Calumet ) and along the Calumet River (e.g. Gary ), many large companies have their headquarters in the city and with the Chicago Board of trade is an important place in the financial sector. Chicago is also an important hub for road, rail and air traffic.

Population

In the 19th century, the Midwest had a very high density of German-speaking residents, in many regions they made up the majority. The cities of St. Louis, Milwaukee and Omaha in particular were centers of German culture, which can still be seen in the large number of breweries there. Even today, most of the German-Americans can be found there, but in terms of origin, not language. About a fifth of the total population in the United States reported being German-American at the last census in 2000, most of them in the Midwest. Immigrants from Scandinavia and their descendants also live in the Midwest, especially in the region around the Great Lakes.

Between 1910 and 1930, many African Americans immigrated from the southern states to the industrial cities of the Midwest in the course of the Great Migration ; In the country, however, unlike in the southern states, there are hardly any African-American residents.

Chicago was and is a frequent destination for immigrants. This is how many Poles live in Chicago today. Latin American naturalized immigrants make up the majority of the 4th Congressional District in the southwest of the city, Albany Park District publishes two Korean-language newspapers, and there is a Korean-language television station.

Also known as Show-me State, Missouri is short for MO with a population of 5,595,211. According to Countryaah, the capital city of Missouri is Jefferson City and the biggest city is Kansas City.

Missouri Seal