Joplin, Missouri
city in southern Jasper County and northern Newton County, Missouri, USA
Joplin is a city in Jasper and Newton counties in the U.S. state of Missouri. Most of the city lies in Jasper County, with the southern portion of Joplin extending into Newton County. With a population of 51,762 at the 2020 census, Joplin is the 12th most-populous city in the state. The city covers an area of 38.21 square miles (99.0 km2) on the outer edge of the Ozark Mountains in southwestern Missouri. Joplin is the principal city of the three-county Joplin metropolitan area, which is home to 210,077 people and is the fifth-largest metropolitan area in Missouri. In May 2011, a violent EF5 tornado killed more than 150 people and destroyed one-third of the city.
History
19th century
Lead was discovered in the Joplin Creek Valley before the Civil War, but only after the war did significant development take place. By 1871, numerous mining camps sprang up in the valley and resident John C. Cox filed a plan for a city on the east side of the valley. Cox named his village Joplin City after the spring and creek nearby, which had been named for the Reverend Harris G. Joplin, who settled upon its banks circa 1840.
Carthage resident Patrick Murphy filed a plan for a city on the opposite side of the valley and named it Murphysburg.
“Joplin, Missouri” enters the record as city in southern Jasper County and northern Newton County, Missouri, USA. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Joplin, Missouri and city can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Joplin, Missouri” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Joplin, Missouri and city provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q317865. VIAF identifies the subject as 265257454. The Library of Congress control number is n80094148. Authority coordinates are 37.084, -94.513. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 2011, 1871 and 1840.
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This entry incorporates text from “Joplin, Missouri” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.