Middle West, Midwest - the north central region of the United States (sometimes called the heartland or the breadbasket of America)

American state - one of the 50 states of the United States

Confederacy, Confederate States, Confederate States of America, Dixie, Dixieland, South - the southern states that seceded from the United States in 1861

Cape Girardeau - a town in southeast Missouri

Columbia - a university town in central Missouri

Hannibal - a town in northeast Missouri on the Mississippi River; boyhood home of Mark Twain

Independence - a city in western Missouri; the beginning of the Santa Fe Trail

capital of Missouri, Jefferson City - capital of the state of Missouri; located in central Missouri on the Missouri river

Kansas City - a city in western Missouri situated at the confluence of the Kansas River and the Missouri River; adjacent to Kansas City, Kansas

Poplar Bluff - a town in southeast Missouri

St. Joseph, Saint Joseph - a town in northwest Missouri on the Missouri River; in the 19th century it became the eastern terminus of the pony express

Gateway to the West, St. Louis, Saint Louis - the largest city in Missouri; a busy river port on the Mississippi River near its confluence with the Missouri River; was an important staging area for wagon trains westward in the 19th century

Sedalia - a town in east central Missouri

Springfield - a city of southwestern Missouri

Osage River, Osage - a river in Missouri that is a tributary of the Missouri River

Saint Francis River, St. Francis River, Saint Francis, St. Francis - a tributary of the Mississippi River that rises in Missouri and flows southeastward through Arkansas

White River, White - a tributary of the Mississippi River that flows southeastward through northern Arkansas and southern Missouri