Experience the best of Omaha

Omaha stands on the west bank of the Missouri River in eastern Nebraska and takes its name from the Omaha people. It grew as a railway hub, where the first transcontinental line began its journey west, and as a meatpacking centre with huge stockyards. The Old Market, a district of cobbled streets and red-brick warehouses, is now a place of restaurants, galleries and shops, and a pedestrian bridge crosses the river to Iowa.

Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, with an indoor desert and a rainforest under glass, is among the best-known zoos in the country, and the Joslyn Art Museum is an Art Deco palace of pink marble. Gerald Ford was born in Omaha in 1913, and the College World Series baseball tournament has been played here every June since 1950. Fontenelle Forest preserves the river bluffs, and Lincoln, the state capital, lies to the south-west.

Steak is the city's calling card, a legacy of the stockyards, and Omaha also claims the Reuben sandwich and the runza, a bread pocket of beef and cabbage brought by German settlers from Russia. Spring brings thunderstorms to the plains, and the humid heat of July settles over the river.