Missouri, in the heart of the USA, is a blend of frontier West, gracious South, the sophisticated East and industrial North. The Missouri Valley was a major pioneer route, with St Louis known as ‘The Gateway to the West'. It is bounded by the Mississippi River in the east. Prairies lie north of the Missouri River (the longest in the USA), with great plains to the west, rolling hills in the south and the Southern-style cotton lands to the southeast.

The state's riverboat culture was immortalised by Mark Twain in Life on the Mississippi and in his tales of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

St Louis, the largest city in Missouri and one of the US's largest inland ports, was once a booming centre for fur traders and explorers opening up ‘The West'. It is now a modern communications, commercial, industrial and cultural centre. It still retains its love affair with the Mississippi River, on whose banks can be heard ragtime, blues and Dixieland jazz.