Jefferson City, Missouri

Jefferson City, Missouri

Jefferson City is the capital of the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Cole County. A small portion of the city extends into Callaway County. It is the principal city of the Jefferson City metropolitan area, which encompasses the entirety of both counties. As of the 2010 census, the population was 43,079. Jefferson City was named after Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States.

Jefferson City is on the northern edge of the Ozark Plateau on the southern side of the Missouri River near the geographic center of the state, in a region known as Mid-Missouri. It is at the western edge of the Missouri Rhineland, one of the major wine-producing regions of the Midwest. The city is dominated by the domed Capitol, rising from a bluff overlooking the Missouri River to the north. Lewis and Clark passed beneath that bluff on their historic expedition upriver before Europeans established any settlement there.