St. Louis is a noteworthy free city and inland port in the U.S. province of Missouri. It is arranged along the western bank of the Mississippi River, which denotes Missouri's fringe with Illinois. The Missouri River converges with the Mississippi River only north of the city. These two waterways joined structure the fourth longest stream framework on the planet. The city had an expected 2017 populace of 308,626 and is the social and monetary focus of the St. Louis metropolitan region (home to almost 3,000,000 individuals), which is the biggest metropolitan zone in Missouri, the second-biggest in Illinois (after Chicago), and the twentieth biggest in the United States.