Current Time in St. Louis, United States

St. Louis stands on the western bank of the Mississippi River in the state of Missouri, a short distance below the point where the Missouri River joins it. That confluence made the site one of the most strategic in North America, and the city has always thought of itself as the place where the eastern United States ends and the West begins. The riverfront is low and open, while wooded neighbourhoods of red brick houses spread inland across gently rolling ground.

About three hundred thousand people live within the city limits and some two and a half million in the wider metropolitan area, which extends into Illinois. St. Louis remains an important centre for medicine, biotechnology, aerospace, brewing and finance, and it is the headquarters of several major corporations.

French fur traders Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau founded the settlement in 1764 and named it for King Louis IX of France. It passed briefly to Spain, then to the United States with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and it was from here that Lewis and Clark set out to explore the continent. Steamboats and later railways made it the fourth largest city in the country by the late nineteenth century, swelled by German and Irish immigration. Its greatest moment of display came in 1904, when St. Louis hosted both the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and the Olympic Games. The twentieth century brought industrial decline and suburban flight, and the city has spent decades reinventing itself.

The Gateway Arch, a stainless steel curve rising one hundred and ninety metres above the riverbank, was completed in 1965 to a design by Eero Saarinen and is the tallest monument in the United States. Small trams carry visitors to a viewing chamber at the summit. Forest Park, larger than Central Park in New York, contains the art museum, the zoo, the science centre and the history museum, all free to enter, a civic tradition of which residents are proud. The Cathedral Basilica holds one of the largest mosaic installations in the world, and the eccentric City Museum, built inside an old shoe factory, delights children and adults alike. The Missouri Botanical Garden is among the oldest in the country.

St. Louis has an outsized musical legacy, from the ragtime of Scott Joplin to the blues and to Chuck Berry, Miles Davis and Josephine Baker. Baseball is close to a religion here, with the Cardinals among the most successful clubs in the sport, and the Blues play ice hockey to packed arenas. Local food specialities include toasted ravioli, thin-crust pizza and gooey butter cake, and the Anheuser-Busch brewery still offers tours.

The MetroLink light rail system links downtown to both the airport and Illinois, several interstate highways converge here, and Lambert International Airport handles national flights. Washington University in St. Louis is one of the leading research universities in the United States, joined by Saint Louis University and a large public campus.

St. Louis offers grand monuments, free museums and deep musical roots at a very human scale.