573 Area Code 🌍☎️

Columbia is the county seat of Boone County, Missouri, and the fourth-most populous city in the state with 126,254 residents in 2020, growing nearly 40% since 2000 to an estimated 130,900 in 2024. Founded in 1821 in the Boonslick region, Columbia is a major Midwestern college town home to the University of Missouri (Mizzou), plus Stephens College and Columbia College, attracting nearly 40,000 students and earning recognition as among the most-educated U.S. cities with about 50% college graduates. The city's economy centers on education and healthcare, including the University of Missouri Health Care system, the most-powerful research nuclear reactor in the United States, and companies like Carfax, Shelter Insurance, and Veterans United Home Loans. Located on oak-forested hills near the Missouri River where the Ozarks meet plains, Columbia features the Avenue of the Columns connecting Francis Quadrangle to the historic courthouse, surrounded by Rock Bridge Memorial State Park, the Katy Trail, and an extensive parks system. The cultural hub hosts the True/False Film Festival, the Missouri Symphony, and the Missouri Tigers athletic program in the Southeastern Conference, and is nicknamed "CoMo" and historically called the "Athens of Missouri." Jefferson City, Missouri's state capital since 1821, had a population of 43,228 in the 2020 census and ranks as the 16th most populous city in the state and the 9th least populous U.S. state capital. Located on the Missouri River's southern bank in Mid-Missouri, approximately midway between Kansas City and St. Louis and at the edge of the Missouri Rhineland wine region, the city is dominated by its monumental domed State Capitol overlooking the river where Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery passed in 1804. Named after third President Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) and author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson City was laid out by Daniel Morgan Boone in the early 19th century after Missouri's admission to the Union in 1821. The city's economy centers on service and manufacturing industries like Hitachi, alongside the public historically black Lincoln University, founded in 1866 by Union Army veterans of the First and Second Missouri Regiments of Colored Infantry. Cape Girardeau is a city spanning Cape Girardeau and Scott counties in southeastern Missouri, located approximately 100 miles southeast of St. Louis and 150 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee, with a 2020 population of 39,540 making it the 17th-largest city in Missouri and the principal city of the Cape Girardeau-Jackson metropolitan area with 97,517 residents. Named after Jean Baptiste de Girardot, a French soldier who established a trading post around 1733, the city was formally settled in 1793 when Spanish authorities granted Louis Lorimier land rights, and it was incorporated as a town in 1808 and reincorporated as a city in 1843. The advent of steamboat travel in 1835 transformed Cape Girardeau into the largest port on the Mississippi River between St. Louis and Memphis, establishing it as the economic center of southeastern Missouri. Cape Girardeau is home to Southeast Missouri State University and notable landmarks including the 1928 Mississippi River bridge (replaced by the 2003 Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge) and the Old Federal Courthouse, which was the subject of the 1946 U.S. Supreme Court case United States v. Carmack. The city experienced significant historical events including the 1863 Battle of Cape Girardeau during the Civil War and a devastating 1949 tornado that killed 22 people.