just a little confused... (St. Louis, Florissant: high school, university, living in)

[illstate89]

I lived near St. Louis for about a year and I love the area. But I'm just confused about what parts of the county are considered "St. Louis". I know that most of STL county is considered "St. Louis" but I was just wondering if anyone could tell me what other places are their own city(so to speak). I know Florissant is its own city, I was just wondering where else. (just out of curiosity)

[1greatcity]

St Louis County is comprised of 91 municipalities plus unincorporated areas, most of which have names themselves. Yes, there are 91 separate cities/villages in the county. Some are fairly large, such as Florissant, while others are tiny and have only a few hundred residents.
Some people use the name of their particular municipality or unincorporated area ("I'm from Affton", "I live in Hazelwood", etc.), while others simply say they are "from St Louis". It's a personal choice. Neither way is right or wrong.

[3240Redo]

1greatcity has it right - there are in actual fact many different cities in St. Louis County, but many people think of the area generally as St. Louis - especially people from out of town or locals when describing where they live to people when out of town. To further complicate matters, I've seen mail delivered all over the metro area with the city given as St. Louis but with the actual zip code for the real city included. For example: St. Louis, MO 63117 (Richmond Heights' zip)

[flynavyj]

Does anyone else think that the St. Louis Relationship vs. the Municipality Relationship mimics pre-civil war America? i.e. "i'm a missourian" as opposed to "i'm an American". Essentially both are true, but it's a matter of which one you'd associate yourself with first...

When overseas or in a different country, i typically say i'm from the United States. That typically brings them to "which one". If i say Missouri, they say "oh" and that's about it. No one seems to know much more than New York or L.A. . Which i guess i couldn't fault them for, besides a few cities in Canada, i don't know all the provinces, cultures, or even locations...So who's going to remember 50 different states, hundreds and hundreds of major cities, dialects, traditions, and history if you're not a part of it?

We did run into some folks in Paris however who recognized our St. Louis University hoodies that turned into a fairly long winded conversation. lol.

[billiken]

I was just in Paris last week Many people were familiar with St Louis, surprisingly.

This whole thing still confuses me--I live in St Louis County, but my driver's license says "St Louis, MO 63119." Is all of St Louis county this way? My proof of residency said the specific suburb I live in, not St Louis.

[wustu87]

What makes it even worse are the large areas of unincorporated St. Louis county that do not have a municipality where they belong. One such area is much of the 63146 zip code just north of Creve Coeur and south of Maryland Heights. There your address should say "St Louis MO 63146" although mail addressed to "Creve Coeur MO 63146" OR "Maryland Heights MO 63146" will both get to you. We used to live there and it was quite confusing to explain to people!

[DinsdalePirahna]

Originally Posted by billiken

I was just in Paris last week Many people were familiar with St Louis, surprisingly.

This whole thing still confuses me--I live in St Louis County, but my driver's license says "St Louis, MO 63119." Is all of St Louis county this way? My proof of residency said the specific suburb I live in, not St Louis.

Not surprising since Saint louis was once the heart of the US. Kind of like a midwestern Ellis Island.

Don't know what happened

[MUTGR]

If you're talking to outsiders, the whole metropolitan area is St. Louis. If you are talking to locals, which area you are from is what we want to know, including high school.

[1greatcity]

Someone mentioned the confusion with zip codes in the St Louis area. Yes, zip codes are yet another layer of imaginary lines which divide the region and complicate matters.
First, let me point out that zip codes rarely follow city limit lines. The city limits of the City of St Louis do NOT coincide with any zip code boundries. For example: zip code 63119, which is mostly Webster Groves and Shrewsbury, also includes a small portion of the City of St Louis. The city limits for St Louis City is straddled by perhaps a dozen zip codes.
In St Louis County, several cities/villages or parts of cities/villages can exist within one zip code. Take 63114, which is called the Overland postal code. Within this zip code is also St John, Breckenridge, Charlack, Sycamore Hills, etc. So someone living in St John might receive mail addressed to either "St John" or "Overland", and 63114. In fact, they'd probably receive the mail if it said "St Louis, 63114" as well.
All of this contributes to the variance in responses you may get when asking someone in St Louis County where they're from.

Here are links to a zip code map for the area,
St. Louis CIN: Zip Code Map (http://stlouis.missouri.org/transportation/zipcode.html - broken link)
and a map of county municipalities, for comparison:
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_uFo00Smcjak/S6...lities-map.jpg

[MUTGR]

[quote=Marksman84;14431942]

Originally Posted by MUTGR

If you're talking to outsiders, the whole metropolitan area is St. Louis. If you are talking to locals, which area you are from is what we want to know, including high school.[/quote]



This just sent a general perception of St. Louisians back so many years/so many intellectual levels....this typifies the insipid crap that people make fun of us for...

illstate89 - if you're within 50 miles of STL, you can claim it, it's OK. And no intelligent, progressive-thinking person would give a rat's ass where you went to high school.

I was joking, but I think there is a lot of truth to the joke. Lighten up.