Welcome to St.Louis, Missouri

​The city was founded in 1764 just south of the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers by colonial French traders Pierre Laclède and René Auguste Chouteau, who named the settlement after King Louis IX of France. The city, as well as the future state of Missouri, became part of the Spanish Empire after the French were defeated in the Seven Years' War. In 1800, the land was secretly transferred back to France, whose leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, sold it to the United States in 1803.

Nicknamed the "Gateway to the West" for its role in the westward expansion of the United States, the city gave the moniker in 1965 to the new Gateway Arch built as part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial; the arch has become the iconic image of St. Louis.

Once the 4th-largest U.S. city, St. Louis proper has seen its population slip to 52nd. At the peak of the city's influence, St. Louis hosted the 1904 World's Fair and 1904 Olympic Games, both the first of their kind held in the Western Hemisphere.

St. Louis has been at the forefront of the 21st-century wave of urban revitalization, receiving the World Leadership Award for urban renewal in 2006.

The city contributed to the musical styles of blues, ragtime, and jazz. The St. Louis Cardinals, one of the most successful Major League Baseball teams, make their home at Busch Stadium. Other professional teams include the St. Louis Rams (football) and St. Louis Blues (hockey). A diversity of successful sports franchises has led to St. Louis being called "North America's Best Sports City."
 
The city's many 19th-century breweries shaped beer in the United States, most notably Anheuser-Busch, Falstaff Brewing Corporation, and Lemp Brewery. The vestiges of French and Spanish colonization make St. Louis one of the largest centers of Roman Catholicism in the United States.

St. Louis lies at the heart of Greater St. Louis, a metropolitan area of nearly three million people in Missouri and Illinois. The Illinois portion is commonly known as the Metro-East. The region is known as an academic and corporate center for the biomedical sciences and is home to some of the country's largest privately held corporations, including Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Graybar, Scottrade, Edward Jones, and is also home to some of the largest public corporations and corporate divisions, including Emerson, Energizer, Anheuser-Busch InBev (North American Headquarters), Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, Purina, Express Scripts, Charter Communications, Monsanto Company, and Wells Fargo Advisers.

St. Louis lies on the transition between humid continental climate and humid subtropical climate, and has neither large mountains nor large bodies of water to moderate its temperature. Both cold Arctic air and hot, humid tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico affect the region. The city has four distinct seasons. Spring is the wettest season and produces erratic severe weather ranging from tornadoes to winter storms. Summers are hot and humid, and the humidity can make the heat index rise to temperatures above 100°F. Fall is mild with lower humidity and can produce intermittent bouts of heavy rainfall with the first snow flurries usually forming in late November. Winters are cold with periodic snow and temperatures often below freezing. Winter storm systems, such as Alberta Clippers, can bring days of heavy freezing rain, ice pellets, and snowfall.

Among the best-known, architecturally significant, or well-visited neighborhoods are Downtown, Midtown, Benton Park West, Carondelet, the Central West End, DeBaliviere Place, Skinker/DeBaliviere, Clayton/Tamm (Dogtown), Dutchtown, Forest Park Southeast, Grand Center, The Hill, Lafayette Square, LaSalle Park, Old North St. Louis, Compton Heights, Princeton Heights, Shaw (home to the Missouri Botanical Garden and named after the Garden's founder, Henry Shaw), Southampton, Southwest Garden, Soulard, Tower Grove East, Tower Grove South, Hortense Place (one of the city's private places, home to many grand mansions), Holly Hills, St. Louis Hills, and Wydown/Skinker.

The city operates 105 parks that serve as gathering spots for neighbors to meet, and contains playgrounds, areas for summer concerts, picnics, baseball games, tennis courts, and lakes. Forest Park, located on the western edge of the central corridor of the City of St. Louis, is one of the largest urban parks in the world, exceeding Central Park in New York City by 500 acres .

There are many museums and attractions in the city. The St. Louis Art Museum, located in the City's premier park, Forest Park, and dating from the 1904 World's Fair, houses an impressive array of modern art and ancient artifacts, with an extensive collection of master works of several centuries, including paintings by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Pissarro, Picasso, and many others. Forest Park is bigger than New York's Central Park, and it also is home to the St. Louis Zoo, the Muny, and many other attractions. The privately owned City Museum offers a variety of interesting exhibits, including several large faux caves and a huge outdoor playground. It also serves as a meeting point for St. Louis's young arts scene.

The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, located in Grand Center, is an arts institution in a world-renowned building designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect, Tadao Ando. Also located in Grand Center is the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, this non-collecting museum is recognized nationally for the quality of its exhibitions and education programs. The Eugene Field House, located in downtown St. Louis, is a museum dedicated to the distinguished children's author. The Missouri History Museum presents exhibits and programs on a variety of topics including the 1904 World's Fair, and a comprehensive exhibit on Lewis and Clark's voyage exploring the Louisiana Purchase. The Fox Theatre, originally one of many movie theatres along Grand Boulevard is now a newly restored theater featuring a Byzantine facade and Oriental decor. The Fox Theatre presents a Broadway Series in addition to concerts. The St. Louis Union Station is a popular tourist attraction with retail shops and a luxury hotel.

The Gateway Arch, part of the Memorial, is easily the city's best-known landmark, as well as a popular tourist site. This Memorial commemorates the acquisition and settlement by the citizens of the United States of America of all of the lands west of the Mississippi River that are part of the nation today. The Arch, and the entire 91 acres of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial park, occupy the exact location of the original French village of St. Louis (1764–1804). Unfortunately, no buildings from that era exist today.

St. Louis is home to the world-renowned Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra which was founded in 1880 and is the second oldest orchestra in the nation. The orchestra has received six Grammy Awards and fifty-six nominations. The Historic Powell Symphony Hall on North Grand Boulevard has been the permanent home of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra since 1968. Leonard Slatkin, largely credited with building the orchestra's international prominence during his 17-year tenure as Music Director, is Conductor Laureate. The current Music Director of the orchestra is David Robertson.

The Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is an annual summer festival of opera performed in English, originally co-founded by Richard Gaddes in 1976. Union Avenue Opera, formed in the early 1990s, is a smaller company that performs opera in their original languages. A $74 million renovation of the Kiel Opera House was approved in June 2009.Other classical music groups of note include the Arianna String Quartet, the quartet-in-residence at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus, and the Young Catholic Musicians, a group for young choir and band members made up of kids from over 60 parishes all over Saint Louis.

St. Louis has long been associated with great ragtime, jazz and blues music. Early rock and roll singer/guitarist Chuck Berry is a native St. Louisan and continues to perform there several times a year. Soul music artists Ike Turner and Tina Turner, Fontella Bass, and jazz innovator Miles Davis began their careers in St. Louis or on the 'East Side' (East St. Louis, Illinois). Additionally, the city was home or adopted home of a number of notable R&B and bluesmen including Little Milton, Oliver Sain, Albert King, Henry Townsend (musician), Johnnie Johnson (musician), and Bennie Smith. It was here that Scott Joplin wrote what was perhaps his most famous song, "The Entertainer (rag)". Louis Jordan was buried here (his last wife's home town) when he passed away. St. Louis has also been a popular stop along the infamous Chitlin' circuit. It is because of this musical tradition that the city's National Hockey League team, added in the 1967 NHL expansion, was named the St. Louis Blues.

Enthusiastic and knowledgeable fans give the city a reputation as "a top-notch sports town" and "Baseball City USA." The Sporting News rated St. Louis the nation's "Best Sports City" in 2000. The St. Louis Cardinals, one of the oldest franchises in Major League Baseball, have won 10 World Championships, which is second all-time only to the New York Yankees, who have won 27 titles.

 The city of St. Louis has earned 12 professional sports championships. The St. Louis Cardinals have won 10 World Series Championships, with one of the championships played against the old cross-city rival St. Louis Browns in 1944. The St. Louis Rams have won one Super Bowl Championship (1999). The St. Louis Hawks won the 1958 NBA Finals for the franchise's only championship. The St. Louis Blues made 25 consecutive playoff appearances from 1979-80 to 2003-04. Despite never winning the Stanley Cup, they have made three trips to the finals (1968-1970).

Saint Louis University football coach Eddie Cochems developed the first modern passing offense in American football history in 1906. Cochems' star halfback, Bradbury Robinson, threw the first legal forward pass on September 5, 1906, in a 22-0 victory over Carroll College at Waukesha, Wisconsin. SLU dropped football as an intercollegiate sport in 1949.

St. Louis was also home to three prominent twentieth-century boxers, Henry Armstrong, and brothers Leon and Michael Spinks. The two are the only brothers in boxing history to have both captured the Heavyweight boxing title. Leon's son Cory Spinks has also held a world title.

St. Louis has long had a reputation as being one of America's soccer hotbeds, and is home to what is arguably the richest soccer history in the nation. In addition to being the former home of several professional teams, including the St. Louis Stars of the NASL, The Saint Louis University men's soccer team has made 16 NCAA Final Four appearances, and has won 10 national championships. The team consistently ranks in the Top 10 of all Division I soccer teams in attendance. Of most pride to many St. Louisans was the 1950 World Cup team, which defeated England 1-0, in what is perhaps the greatest upset in World Cup history.