United States · Missouri
Where to Stay in St. Louis, Missouri
The Gateway Arch curves over the Mississippi. St. Louis is a river city in Missouri, founded in 1764 and known worldwide for that stainless span.
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Where to stay in St. Louis
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Where you stay in St. Louis tends to follow the river and the parks. The downtown riverfront holds the great landmark. The Gateway Arch stands on its lawn above the Mississippi, with the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, the oldest church, a short walk inland and the green squares of Citygarden between them.
Base yourself here and the riverfront is at the door. It is the historic heart. West of the centre runs the arts and university belt, quieter and residential.
The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts sit along it, with the Saint Louis University Museum of Art and the St. Francis Xavier College Church marking the campus. Between them stand the preserved houses: the Campbell House Museum, the Eugene Field House, and the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site, where the ragtime composer lived. Families make for the City Museum, a warehouse rebuilt into a climbable playground.
Whichever district you pick, the Mississippi and the Missouri are never far, for St. Louis grew up near their meeting.
About St. Louis
St. Louis is known first for the Gateway Arch.
What is St. Louis known for?
The monument defines it. Standing on the riverbank where the settlement began, the stainless curve marks the old jumping-off point for the westward routes and remains the tallest built monument in the country. Below and around it, the city keeps a dense run of museums: the City Museum, the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, and the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts among them.
Music and rivers fill out the name.
What are the main landmarks in St. Louis?
The main landmarks of St. Louis begin at the Gateway Arch. Its stainless curve rises over the riverfront lawn where the city was founded, framing the Mississippi so completely that the whole downtown reads outward from that single span above the water. The Catholic Basilica of St. Louis, King of France stands inland as the oldest church.
The City Museum and the green Citygarden round out the core.
What is the history of St. Louis?
St. Louis was founded in 1764 by French traders on the bank of the Mississippi. The Catholic Basilica of St. Louis, King of France stands from that first Catholic parish, and the old French core grew into a fur-trade town near the meeting of the great rivers. The settlement passed to the United States and became the launching point for the routes west.
Trade made it rich. Steamboats and then railroads carried the wealth. The mansions of the merchant class rose across the growing city, and the Campbell House Museum keeps one such fur-trade fortune while the Eugene Field House recalls the writer's family.
Ragtime was born here. The Scott Joplin House State Historic Site preserves the composer's rooms. In the twentieth century the Gateway Arch was raised on the riverfront to mark the city's role in the westward expansion, and it became the tallest built monument in the land.
From a French landing to Missouri's second city, St. Louis kept its face to the water.
Where is St. Louis?
St. Louis sits on the west bank of the Mississippi in Missouri, near its confluence with the Missouri River. The riverfront is low and flat. Bluffs and rolling upland rise behind the levee, where the Gateway Arch marks the old landing and the downtown grid climbs away from the water.
The two great rivers meet just above the city.
What is the climate of St. Louis?
St. Louis has a temperate continental climate with sharp seasons. Summers turn hot and humid over the river valley, with storms building on the warmest days as moisture rides up from the south. The cold settles in over winter.
Snow and ice arrive most years, and spring and autumn bring the mild, shifting weather of the mid-continent between the two extremes.
How do you get to St. Louis?
St. Louis is reached by air, road, rail, and river. An international airport serves the metro to the northwest, and interstate highways bridge the Mississippi into Illinois to the east. Trains still call downtown near the Gateway Arch.
Barge traffic works the river below the levee, on the same water that carried the fur trade that founded the city.
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Updated July 2026