Saint Paul

Saint Paul sits on the bluffs above the Mississippi River at the practical head of navigation — the farthest upstream that big riverboats could reliably reach — which made it the gateway where goods transferred between river and rail. That role fixed it as the territorial and then state capital in 1849, and it grew into the eastern half of the Twin Cities, paired across the river with larger, younger Minneapolis.

The two cities share a metro of more than three and a half million but keep distinct characters: Saint Paul the older, more buttoned-up capital of government and Catholic institutions, Minneapolis the brasher commercial twin. The Mississippi curves through and between them, and the surrounding country is the lake-dotted glacial plain of southern Minnesota.

• Minnesota
  The Land of 10,000 Lakes, headwaters of the Mississippi located in
• Minneapolis
  The larger of the Twin Cities, on the Mississippi same state