St Louis covers an area of about 158 sq km (60 sq mi) and is the centre of a large metropolitan area that extends into five counties in Missouri and five counties in Illinois. From 1950 to 1990 the number of inhabitants in St Louis declined by almost 54 per cent, but the rest of the metropolitan area population grew by nearly 115 per cent. St Louis is chiefly a commercial centre, and has important financial institutions and manufacturing industries. The city is one of the nation's busiest inland ports, situated just south of its confluence with the Missouri River, with ship connections to the Upper Mississippi, to Chicago and the Great Lakes, to the Ohio River system, and to the Gulf of Mexico. St Louis is also a centre for warehousing and the trucking industry. Lambert-St Louis International Airport is nearby.

Until recently the major growth industries were the aerospace and motor-vehicle industries. While these remain, health-care, tourism, and other service industries now dominate, while the manufacturing of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, electrical and electronic equipment, processed foods, beer, metal, wood and paper goods, printed materials, and refined petroleum continues.

St Louis occupies a rolling limestone plateau that rises gently from the downtown area near the Mississippi River. Manufacturing and commercial facilities are located along both sides of the Mississippi. Collections of skyscrapers built since World War II in western suburbs rival central St Louis as office and business districts.

In 1990 blacks made up 47.5 per cent of the St Louis city population. From an original focus near the city centre, black areas extend west and north-west into St Louis County. Much of the southern half of the city of St Louis has a German atmosphere, with solidly built brick houses; the Hill, an Italian district, is in west central St Louis.

The symbol for present-day St Louis is the architecturally striking Gateway Arch (1964), located on the riverfront, which rises 192 m (630 ft) and contains an observation deck at the top and commemorates St Louis's role as a gateway to the West. Near the arch are the Old Cathedral of St Louis of France (1831 to 1834), and the Old Courthouse (1839), in which the important Dred Scott case involving the citizenship of blacks was initially tried in 1846. Just west of the arch is the central area, the site of the Wainwright Building (1891), which had an important early influence on skyscraper construction. Also in town is Busch Memorial Stadium, home of the Cardinals major-league baseball team, and nearby is the St Louis Zoological Park, St Louis Science Center, St Louis History Museum, and the St Louis Art Museum. Among the institutions of higher education in the St Louis area are St Louis University, Washington University (1853), the University of Missouri-St Louis (1963), Webster University (1915), Concordia Seminary (1839), Harris-Stowe State College (1857). The St Louis Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1880, is one of the oldest in the United States.

White settlement of the area began in 1764 when Pierre Lacléde Liguest, a French merchant, selected the site of St Louis for a trading post. Construction of a village, named after Louis IX of France, began the following year. From its founding St Louis was both a market and an outfitting point for fur traders and explorers of the American West. It was transferred to the Spanish in 1770, returned to France during the Napoleon I era and, following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, became part of the United States. The city's population, predominantly French until well into the 19th century, grew rapidly from 1840 to 1860, as many German and Irish immigrants arrived and the railway reached St Louis — then the largest city of the region.

By 1900 St Louis had become a major manufacturing centre. In 1904 the city hosted the Olympic Games as well as a World's Fair. The city enjoyed steady growth in the first half of the 20th century, but after 1950 its population declined, and large areas fell into disrepair. Urban renewal projects include the Cervantes Convention Center (1978) and Union Station mall (1985). In 1993 floodwaters of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers inundated outlying areas of the city and its suburbs. Population (1980) 453,085; (1990) 396,685.

"St Louis," Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia.  1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation