Over the years, the city was most often referred to as 'Jefferson City' and the name stuck. The village first was called 'Lohman's Landing', and when the legislature decided to relocate there, they proposed the name 'Missouriopolis' before settling on the city of 'Jefferson' to honor Thomas Jefferson. However Jefferson City was chosen as the new capital in 1821. Louis was Missouri's seat of government, and St. When the Missouri Territory was organized in 1812, St. Daniel Boone's son, Daniel Morgan Boone, would later lay out Jefferson City in the early 19th century. In the late 17th century, frontiersmen started to inhabit the area, including Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, Louis Jolliet, Jacques Marquette, Robert de LaSalle, and Daniel Boone, with the latter having the greatest influence on the region. In pre-Columbian times, this region was home of an ancient people known only as the 'Mound Builders', having been replaced by Osage Native Americans. Photograph of Jefferson City and its geography from the International Space Station Colored Troops with support from the 65th Regiment of U.S. Jefferson City is also home to Lincoln University, a public historically black land-grant university founded in 1866 by the 62nd Regiment of U.S. Many of Jefferson City's primary employers are in service and manufacturing industries. The city is dominated by the domed Capitol, which rises from a bluff overlooking the Missouri River to the north Lewis and Clark passed the bluff on their historic expedition upriver before Europeans established any settlement there. It is 29 miles south of Columbia, Missouri, and sits at the western edge of the Missouri Rhineland, one of the major wine-producing regions of the Midwest. Jefferson City is located on the northern edge of the Ozark Plateau on the southern side of the Missouri River in a region known as Mid-Missouri, that is roughly mid-way between the state's two large urban areas of Kansas City and St. Jefferson City is named for Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. Most of the city is in Cole County, with a small northern section extending into Callaway County. It is also the county seat of Cole County and the principal city of the Jefferson City Metropolitan Statistical Area, the second-most-populous metropolitan area in Mid-Missouri and the fifth-largest in the state.

It had a population of 43,228 at the 2020 census, ranking as the 15th most populous city in the state. Jefferson City, informally Jeff City, is the capital of the U.S.

1784 pcr 800, perryville, mo