Missouri is a central state in the United States. It is considered by most of its inhabitants to be a Midwestern state, but it has many Southern cultural influences. The state's nickname is the Show-MeState. The Mississippi and Missouri rivers are the two large rivers which flow through the state.
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Missouri's border physically touches a total of eight different states (as does its neighbor, Tennessee. No states in the U.S. touch more than eight states). It is bounded on the north by Iowa; on the east, across the Mississippi River, by Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee; on the south by Arkansas; and on the west by Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska (the latter across the Missouri River.) The Mississippi and Missouri rivers are the two large rivers which flow through this state.
North of the Missouri River lie the Northern Plains that stretch into Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas. Here, gentle rolling hills remain behind from a glacier that once had extended from the north to the Missouri River.
The Ozark plateau begins south of the river and extends into Arkansas, southeast Kansas, and northeast Oklahoma. Springfield in southwestern Missouri lies on the Ozark plateau. Southern Missouri is the home of the Ozark Mountains, a dissected plateau surrounding the Precambrian igneous St. Francois Mountains. It is in the Ozarks that a distinct dialect, often compared to that of residents in certain areas of Kentucky and Tennessee, still exists.
The southeastern part of the state is home to the Bootheel, part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain or Mississippi embayment. This region is the lowest, flattest and wettest part of the state. It is also the most fertile. Cotton and rice production are prominent in this area. The Bootheel area was the part of the New Madrid Earthquake of 1811–1812.
Although now generally considered part of the Midwest, Missouri was once thought of as Southern, and still is by many Missourians today. For example, Mark Twain, who grew up in Hannibal, in Life on the Mississippi described his upbringing as in "the South". Still, while larger cities, especially those in the northern part of the state (St. Louis, Columbia, Kansas City) consider themselves "Midwestern", rural areas and cities farther south (Cape Girardeau, Poplar Bluff, Springfield, and Sikeston) consider themselves more "Southern".
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