In 2015, the Progressive Policy Institute recognized St. Charles County among the top 25 counties in the U.S. for tech job growth.
For the past eight years, St. Charles County has ranked at the top of Missouri’s “Healthiest Counties” in a report compiled by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute.
St. Charles County covers 561 square miles of diverse terrain that includes riverbanks, bluffs, forests and planned development.
St. Charles County is located at the confluence of the “Mighty” Mississippi River and the “Big Muddy” Missouri River, the fourth-largest river system in the world.
St. Charles County served as Missouri’s first state capital from 1821 to 1826 and was the starting point for Lewis and Clark’s famous Corp of Discovery Expedition in 1804.
The “first free school” west of the Mississippi River with the Academy of the Sacred Heart, established by Sister Philippine Duchesne in St. Charles and 1818.
The largest park in St. Charles County is the 7,000-acre August A. Busch Memorial Conservation area, known locally as “Busch Wildlife” and popular for trail users, fishing, hunting and family outings.
St. Charles County is home to the Weinstrasse, or Missouri Wine Road, which boasts the highest concentration of wineries in the state and was the first American Viticultural Area designated by the federal government.
The 10-block, 200-year-old Historic Main Street in St. Charles is Missouri’s first and largest historic district and one of the largest in the United States.
In 1970, fewer than 100,000 people lived in St. Charles County. Current U.S. Census estimates place the local population above 395,504, with nearly 110,000 people moving here since 2000.
The Ameristar Casino Resort Spa in St. Charles is the most popular tourist site in metro St. Louis, with approximately 10 million visitors each year.
St. Charles County is the starting point for the 240-mile Katy Trail State Park and is the most popular section of the system, attracting 135,000 users in 2018, 40 percent of all the Katy Trail users in Missouri.
With eight data centers located along the highway 40/I-64 “high tech” corridor in St. Charles County, the local area has one of the largest concentrations of IT facilities in metro St. Louis.
At more than $8.27 billion in total assessed valuation, St. Charles County is ranked third in the state after St. Louis County and Jackson County.
Accounting for 6.2 percent of Missouri’s total economy, St. Charles County is ranked third in the state after St. Louis County and Jackson County.