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Columbia is a city of 116,906 people in the state of Missouri. Founded in 1820 as the county seat of Boone County and home to the University of Missouri, it is the principal municipality of the Columbia Metropolitan Area, the fourth most populous urban area in Missouri. As a midwestern college town, the city has a reputation for progressive politics, public art, and powerful journalism. The tripartite establishment of Stephens College (1833), The University of Missouri (1839), and Columbia College (1851) has long made the city a center of education, culture, and athletic competition. These three schools surround Downtown Columbia on the east, south, and north; at the center is the Avenue of the Columns, which connects Francis Quadrangle and Jesse Hall to the Boone County Courthouse and the City Hall. Originally an agricultural town, today the cultivation of the mind is Columbia's chief economic concern. Never a major center of manufacturing, the city also depends on healthcare, insurance, and technology businesses. Several companies—Shelter Insurance, Carfax, and Slackers CDs and Games among them—were founded in the city. Cultural institutions include the State Historical Society of Missouri, the Museum of Art and Archaeology, and the annual True/False Film Festival. The Missouri Tigers, the state's only major athletic program, play football at Faurot Field and basketball at Mizzou Arena as members of the Southeastern Conference. The city is built upon the forested hills and rolling prairies of Mid-Missouri, near the Missouri River valley, where the Ozark Mountains begin to transform into plains and savanna; limestone forms bluffs and glades while rain carves caves and springs which water the Hinkson, Roche Perche, and Petite Bonne Femme creeks. Surrounding the city, Rock Bridge State Park, Mark Twain National Forest, and Big Muddy National Fish and Wildlife Refuge form a greenbelt preserving sensitive and rare environments. The first humans were nomadic hunters who entered the area at least twelve-thousand years ago. Later, woodland tribes lived in villages along waterways and built mounds in high places. The Osage and Missouria nations were expelled by the exploration of French traders and the rapid settlement of American pioneers. The latter arrived by the Boone's Lick Trail and hailed from the slave-owning culture of the Upland South, especially Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, giving Boonslick the name Little Dixie during American Civil War. German, Irish, and other European immigrants soon joined. The modern populace is unusually diverse, over eight percent foreign-born. While White and Black remain the largest ethnicities, Asians are now the third-largest group. Today's Columbians are remarkably highly educated and culturally midwestern, though traces of their Southern past remain. The city has been called the "Athens of Missouri" or a reference to its classic beauty and educational emphasis, but is more commonly called "CoMo." ==History== (詳細は The Columbia area was once part of the Mississippian culture and home to the Mound Builders. When European explorers arrived, the area was populated by the Osage and Missouri Indians.〔 In 1678, La Salle claimed all of Missouri for France. The Lewis and Clark Expedition passed by the area on the Missouri River in early June 1804. In 1806, two sons of Daniel Boone established a salt lick northwest of Columbia. giving the area its early name: Boonslick. The Boone's Lick Trail wound from St. Charles to the lick in present day Howard County. In 1818, a group of settlers, incorporated under the Smithton Land Company, purchased over and established the village of Smithton less than a mile from current day downtown Columbia.〔 In 1821, the settlers moved, because of lack of water, across the Flat Branch to the plateau between the Flat Branch and Hinkson creeks in what is now the downtown district. They renamed the settlement Columbia—a poetic personification of the United States.〔 The roots of Columbia's three economic foundations—education, medicine, and insurance—can be traced back to incorporation in 1821.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=History of Columbia )〕 Original plans for the town set aside land for a state university. In 1833, Columbia Baptist Female College opened, which later became Stephens College. Columbia College (distinct from today's), later to become the University of Missouri, was founded in 1839. When the state legislature decided to establish a state university, Columbia raised three times as much money as any other competing city and James S. Rollins donated the land that is today the Francis Quadrangle.〔 Soon other educational institutions were founded in Columbia such as Christian Female College, the first college for women west of the Mississippi, which later became the current Columbia College. The city benefited from being a stagecoach stop of the Santa Fe and Oregon trails, and later from the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad. In 1822 the first hospital was set up by William Jewell. In 1830, the first newspaper began; in 1832, the first theater in the state was opened; and in 1835, the state's first agricultural fair was held. By 1839, the population (13,000) and wealth of Boone County was exceeded in Missouri only by that of St. Louis County, which at that time included the City of St. Louis. Columbia's infrastructure was relatively untouched by the Civil War. Missouri, as a slave state, had Southern sympathies, but remained in the union. The majority of the city was pro-union,〔 however, the surrounding agricultural areas of Boone County and the rest of central Missouri were decidedly pro-secession. Because of this, the University of Missouri became a base from which union troops operated. No battles were fought within the city because the presence of union troop dissuaded the confederate guerrillas from attacking, though several major battles occurred nearby at Boonville and Centralia. After the Civil War, race relations in Columbia followed the Southern pattern. In 1889, the city witnessed the lynching of an African American man, George Burke. In 1963, Columbia become home to the headquarters of both the University of Missouri System, which today serves over 71,000 students,〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=History of the University )〕 and the Columbia College system, which today serves about 25,000 students.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Welcome to Columbia College )〕 The insurance industry also became important to the local economy as several companies established headquarters in Columbia, including Shelter Insurance, Missouri Employers Mutual, and Columbia Insurance Group. State Farm Insurance has a regional office in Columbia. In addition, the now defunct Silvey Insurance was once a large local employer. Columbia became a transportation crossroads when U.S. Route 63 and U.S. Route 40 (which became present-day Interstate 70) were routed through the city. Soon after the city opened the Columbia Regional Airport. The latter 20th century saw tremendous growth, and by 2000 the population was nearly 85,000 in the city proper.〔 In early 2006, Columbia embarked on a plan〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Imagine Columbia's Future Visioning Overview )〕 to manage the continued growth as the city passed 100,000 population. The city continues to grow, especially east around the newly opened Battle High School. The downtown district has maintained its status as a cultural center and is undergoing significant development in both residential and commercial sectors. The University of Missouri, which has tremendous economic impact on the city, experienced record enrollment in 2006〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=MU Freshman Enrollment Surpasses 5,000 )〕 and is undertaking significant construction. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Columbia, Missouri」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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