Where does Missouri fit?

[opebo]

Unfortunately, we have a lot of the Southern and Plains culture.  We're maybe 1/3 each: 1. proper civilized Midwestern (St. Louis mostly), 2. Arkansas/Tennessee style in the southern half of the state, and 3. sort of Kansas-like (rather than Iowa-like, alas) in the north.  So the State is about 2/3's horrific, 1/3 barely tolerable.

[opebo]

Iowa and Missouri are very different.  I'm originally from Southern Iowa, where people speak with a flat accent, but when I was in Northern Missouri, people definitely had a twang.

When we use to go on family holidays to Iowa it was like crossing into civilization again after the Missouri rural areas.

[opebo]

Could it be a religious divide?

I think the answer is yes.

Precisely!  That's the map that explains Missouri.  It even explains the 'good part' of Missouri:  if you see the blueish Catholic majority area that includes St. Louis and runs slightly north and south of the city, and then all the way west to Columbia - that's the relatively 'civilized' part I'm talking about.  Its tolerable.