Greater St. Louis is a bi-state
metropolitan statistical area in the
United States with its
core in both
Missouri and
Illinois.[3][4] Its largest principal city is the
independent city of
St. Louis, and its largest employer is
St Louis County, Missouri which lies immediately to the west.[5] The
pre-war city core is on the Mississippi Riverfront on the border with Illinois in the geographic center of the metro area. The
Mississippi River bisects the metro area geographically between Illinois and Missouri; however, the Missouri portion is much more populous. St. Louis is the focus of the largest metro area in Missouri and the Illinois portion known as Metro East is the second largest metropolitan area in that state.
St. Louis County is independent of the City of St. Louis and their two populations are generally tabulated separately.
In 2020, the St. Louis MSA was the
21st-largest in the nation with a population of 2,820,253. The larger CSA is ranked
20th-largest in the United States, with a population of 2,909,003.[9] Due to slow growth in the St. Louis area paired with comparatively rapid growth in the
Sun Belt, the St. Louis MSA fell out of the top 20 largest MSAs in the United States in 2017 for the first time since 1840.[10][11][12]
As of 2021, Greater St. Louis is home to the headquarters of ten of Missouri's eleven
Fortune 500 companies,[13] six
Fortune 1,000 companies, and two of the top 30 largest private companies in America, as ranked by Forbes.[13] The metropolitan area received the
All-America City Award in 2008.
The
Illini Confederacy at one time dominated the lands where St Louis is now located. During the 17th century, the population of indigenous peoples in the area was well over tens of thousands, with a population of 20,000 in the Grand Village of Illinois. Indigenous peoples in the area built earthwork mounds on both sides of the Mississippi River, with the
Cahokia Mounds being the regional center. Due to mounds inside city limits, St Louis still has a nickname of "Mound City".
Pierre Laclede Liguest and his 13-year-old grandson,
Auguste Chouteau, selected St. Louis as the site for a French fur trading post in 1764 due to its proximity to the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, as well as its propensity to not flood. In 1770, St Louis ownership was transferred to Spain, and then returned to France during a secret treaty (
Treaty of San Ildefonso), before becoming a part of the United States during the 1803
Louisiana Purchase.
St Louis steadily grew after the Louisiana Purchase due to the city being the starting point for
Lewis and Clark and its access to water transportation. It was incorporated as a city in 1823. Between 1840 and 1860, the population exploded with immigrants, especially those of German and Irish descent. St Louis's current boundaries were established in 1876. After the
American Civil War, St Louis continued to grow into a major manufacturing center due to its access to rail and water transportation. By the 1890s, St Louis was the 4th largest city in the United States.
In 1904 St Louis hosted the
world's fair in
Forest Park along with the Olympics at
Washington University's Francis Field. More than 20 million people visited the city during the fairs seven-month long run. St Louis was seen as a city of industrialization with ties to the automobile industry. The Great Migration between World War I and World War II brought thousands of African Americans to the city, boosting St Louis's population to 800,000 by 1940. The population peaked in 1950 at 856,000, however there was no more room for expansion within city boundaries and earlier immigrant generations started moving to suburbs that could not be annexed.
During the mid-1960s the
Gateway Arch and
Busch Stadium started being built in part to help revitalize the central business district with a 30-year downtown building boom following. Today, there is a continued population decline, however, revitalization efforts are still well under way.[14]
Political divisions in Greater St. Louis
The population of political divisions in Greater St. Louis (2020)
As noted above, the Greater St. Louis area includes two municipalities named O'Fallon (in St. Charles County, Missouri and St. Clair County, Illinois), two municipalities named Troy (in Lincoln County, Missouri and Madison County, Illinois), and two municipalities named Chesterfield (in St. Louis County, Missouri and Macoupin County, Illinois).
The nearby
Hannibal–
Quincy micropolitan area and
Springfield, Illinois metropolitan area are technically not located within the metropolitan area, but are regionally associated due to their proximity and accessibility to Greater St. Louis.[22]
Demographics
According to the
2010 United States Census, in Greater St. Louis there were 2,787,701 people living in 1,143,001 households, of which 748,892 households were families.
According to a
Pew Research study conducted in 2014, 75% of St. Louis metro area residents identify with Christianity and its various denominations, and 4% are adherents of non-Christian religions. 21% have no religion. Of those, about 3% specifically identify as atheists, about 3% identify as agnostics, and about 16% identify as "Nothing in particular".[23]
The religious demographics of the St. Louis metro area are as follows:[23]
As of 2010, Greater St. Louis included 1,264,680
housing units, and 90.4 percent or 1,143,001 units were occupied. Of those units that were vacant, 3.2 percent or 40,553 units were for rent, 1.6 percent or 19,956 were for sale, 1 percent or 12,575 were unoccupied seasonal homes, and .5 percent or 6,771 were sold or rented but unoccupied. 3.3 percent or 41,884 units were vacant and not for sale or rent. Of the occupied housing units, 70.6 percent or 807,431 were
owner-occupied with 2,075,622 occupants. 29.4 percent or 335,570 units were
rented with 739,749 occupants.[24]
In 2010, the median income for a household in the St. Louis metro was $50,900.[26]
Transportation in Greater St. Louis includes
road,
rail, and
air transportation modes connecting the communities in the area with national and international transportation networks. Parts of Greater St. Louis also support a
public transportation network that includes
bus, as well as the MetroLink
light rail which began operating in 1993. The principal airport serving the region is
St. Louis Lambert International Airport, located in St. Louis County. It also includes
MidAmerica St. Louis Airport.
Education in Greater St. Louis is provided by 132 public school districts,[27][28] independent private schools,
parochial schools, and several public library systems. Greater St. Louis also is home to more than 30[quantify] colleges and universities.
Parks in Greater St. Louis are administered by a variety of state, county, and municipal authorities, and the region also includes the state of Missouri's only
National Park,
Gateway Arch National Park. Several
Missouri state parks in the region and parks owned by St. Louis County are larger than 1,000 acres, while one park in the city of St. Louis,
Forest Park, also exceeds 1,000 acres.
The 2014 Gross Metropolitan Product (GMP) of St. Louis was $145.958 billion,[29] that makes St. Louis the 21st highest GMP in the United States. The three largest categories of employment in Greater St. Louis are trade, transportation, and utilities with 249,000 workers, education and healthcare services with 225,000 workers, and professional and business services with 185,000 workers.[30] Greater St. Louis has more than 1.3 million non-farm workers, representing roughly 15 percent of the non-farm workforce of Missouri and Illinois combined. As of May 2011, 125,000 non-farm workers were unemployed in Greater St. Louis, with an unemployment rate of 8.6 percent. As of the third quarter of 2010, the Greater St. Louis region had more than 73,000 companies or establishments paying wages, while average weekly wages for that period were $833, slightly lower than the U.S. national average of $870.
The largest industry by business conducted was wholesaling with $71 billion, followed by manufacturing with $67 billion, retail trade with $36 billion, and healthcare with $16 billion. The area's largest employer by sector was healthcare with 174,000 workers, followed by retail trade with 152,000 workers and manufacturing with 134,000 workers.[31] Using available data, the combined value of business conducted in the combined statistical area was $213 billion in 2007.[31] With a gross metropolitan product of $112 billion in 2009, St. Louis' economy makes up 40% of the Gross State Product of Missouri.[32]
^"US Conference of Mayors"(PDF). Metro Economics Report. IHS Global Insight. Archived from
the original(PDF) on January 31, 2012. Retrieved January 18, 2012.
^"Missouri School Directory"(PDF). Missouri Comprehensive Data System, State of Missouri Districts, Charters, & Schools. Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. March 7, 2023.
Archived(PDF) from the original on May 27, 2023. Retrieved May 27, 2023.