Ingrams August 2023

At just shy of 70,000 square miles, Missouri is a mighty big place. So rather than try to eat the elephant in one gulp, let’s slice it into bite-size geographical pieces for consideration. Largely rural in its expanse, Missouri has a concen tration of urban residents in three cities. St. Louis has about 2.1 million residents in its’ Missouri-side MSA counties, while the Kansas City region (has about 1.3 on the Missouri side. Springfield, the third leg of the population-based triangle, has about half a million. Combined, that’s close to two-thirds of the state’s population packed into less than 11,000 of more than 69,000 square miles of surface area. That leaves plenty of wide, open spaces to call your name for year-round excursions. Outside of the urban vacation zones, Missouri tourism is generally driven by attractions in the Ozarks. No surprise that: As a geographical region, the Ozarks spreads from the southwest corner of Missouri northeast nearly to St. Louis, and close to the Mississippi River in the southeast. That’s roughly half the state, and it includes state parks and campgrounds, waterways suitable for canoeing, trails, and the vast Mark Twain National Forest, among many other features. The center of the population uni verse in that part of the state is Spring field. Just 30 minutes south on U.S. 65 sits Branson, a national draw in its own right as a vacationland for country themed musical acts and stage perfor mances. To the northeast corner of the region sits Hermann, in Gasconade County, on land designated as part of the American Viticultural Area’s Ozark Mountain. It’s a pillar of a resurgent wine industry in Missouri, one that draws tens of thou sands of visitors to multiple vineyards that produce their own vintages. Through the center of the Ozarks, from north to south, are lakes created by damming key rivers in the mid-20th century. Foremost among them is the Lake of the Ozarks, near dead-center of the state. Table Rock Lake, famed for the clarity of its water, sits on the state’s southern border just a few miles from Arkansas. That region contains a chain of lakes, starting and ending in Arkan

ARCH AND ARTS | Beneath the glow of the Gateway Arch, Downtown St. Louis is a thriving collection of musical venues, restaurants, pro sports, cultural attractions and more.

BUILT TO SCALE | Fishing is a major tourism magnet for the state, and state-funded hatch eries like the Shepherd of the Hills site in Branson help populate the waterways.

TIGER TIME | Truman the Tiger is an ever-present cheerleader at Mizzou football games, helping provide a 12th-man element when SEC teams visit Columbia.

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