St. Louis (pronounced /seɪnt ˈluːɪs/ or /sænt ˈluː.i/; French: Saint-Louis or St-Louis, [sɛ̃ lwi] ( listen)) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. With an estimated population of 354,361 in 2008, it is the principal municipality of Greater St. Louis, population 2,866,517, the largest urban area in Missouri and sixteenth largest in the United States. The city was founded in 1763 just south of the confluence of the Missouri and Mis...
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St. Louis (pronounced /seɪnt ˈluːɪs/ or /sænt ˈluː.i/; French: Saint-Louis or St-Louis, [sɛ̃ lwi] ( listen)) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. With an estimated population of 354,361 in 2008, it is the principal municipality of Greater St. Louis, population 2,866,517, the largest urban area in Missouri and sixteenth largest in the United States. The city was founded in 1763 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. In 1800 the land was secretly transferred back to France, whose leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, promptly sold it to the United States in 1803. On August 22, 1876 the City of St. Louis voted to secede from St. Louis County and become an independent city, limiting its geographic growth. Once the fourth largest single city in the United States, St. Louis' city proper population has since slipped to 52nd. The...
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