Arkansas

I

Introduction

Arkansas, state in the United States, classified as one of the west south central states. The term is appropriate, for west, south, and Midwest states seem to meet in Arkansas. The southwestern section of the state, with its cattle and oil fields, has the feeling of the Western Plains. Dairy farms and orchards in the northwest seem more akin to parts of the Corn Belt, while the cotton plantations in the east toward the Mississippi River are reminiscent of the Deep South.

Arkansas’s natural resources are abundant water; vast forests of quick-growing pines and valuable hardwoods; and extensive deposits of oil, natural gas, and many other minerals.

Arkansas entered the Union on June 15, 1836, as the 25th state. Until the 1950s Arkansas was primarily an agricultural state. Farming was the chief source of income, but a meager source for many, particularly in the uplands, and many people left Arkansas in search of a better livelihood. Then, Arkansas, aided by coordinated planning and new developments in transportation and power production, began to industrialize very rapidly. By the end of the 1950s manufacturing had surpassed farming as the chief source of income, and in the late 1990s Arkansas had an economy dominated by the manufacturing and service sectors. Tourism has also become important.

The state's nickname is The Natural State to call attention to the beauty of its natural environment. The name Arkansas comes from Arkansa, the French name for Native Americans of the Quapaw tribe and the region they inhabited. The s was added as a plural, though it remains silent in the pronunciation formally adopted by the state’s legislature. Little Rock is the capital and largest city of Arkansas.

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II

Physical Geography

Arkansas ranks 28th among the states in size, and it covers 137,733 sq km (53,179 sq mi), including 2,875 sq km (1,110 sq mi) of inland water. Its maximum extent north to south is 386 km (240 mi), and east to west 444 km (276 mi). The mean elevation is about 200 m (650 ft).

A

Natural Regions

Arkansas has two well-defined natural regions. A line drawn from the northeastern corner of the state southwestward through Little Rock to Arkadelphia, and from there due west to the Oklahoma border, separates the two regions. North and west of the line are the Interior Highlands; east and south of the line is the Coastal Plain.

The Interior Highlands include the Ozark Mountains, the Ouachita Mountains, and the Arkansas River Valley, which divides the two highland regions. The highest mountain peak in the state, Magazine Mountain, rises abruptly from the Arkansas Valley floor to 839 m (2,753 ft) above sea level. Other isolated peaks in the valley are Sugar Loaf Mountain, Poteau Mountain, Mount Nebo, and Petit Jean Mountain.

North of the Arkansas Valley are the Ozark Mountains, or Ozark Plateau, which lie mainly in southern Missouri. Commonly known as the Ozarks, they are made up of ancient sandstones and limestones. In many places the limestone has been dissolved by water to form caves, sinks (depressions or holes in the earth’s surface), and even underground river channels. The southern part of the Ozarks is known as the Boston Mountains, which extend about 300 km (about 200 mi) from east to west. They form the most rugged part of the Ozarks and are bounded on the north by a gentle escarpment. With peaks more than 700 m (2,300 ft) high, the Boston Mountains are a heavily wooded tangle of steep sandstone ridges and jagged spurs, cut through by gorges as much as 430 m (1,400 ft) deep.

South of the Arkansas Valley are the Ouachita Mountains, which also contain rocks of great age. The rock layers here were subjected to tremendous pressure in the geologic past and were pushed into folds that now form long, narrow ridges that run from east to west and are separated by wide basins. The Ouachitas cover a belt about 80 to 100 km (about 50 to 60 mi) wide extending from just west of Little Rock into Oklahoma. They rise to the west, reaching over 800 m (2,600 ft) at Blue Mountain near the Oklahoma state line.

The Coastal Plain in Arkansas extends across the eastern and southern parts of the state in two sections. The easternmost section is composed of the fertile Mississippi Alluvial Plain. This is often called the Delta, and until it was cleared for agriculture it was an area of swamps, dense forest, and tangled undergrowth. Its flat expanse is broken only by a narrow strip of hills, called Crowley’s Ridge, which extends about 240 km (about 150 mi) from Helena on the Mississippi River north to the Missouri border where it reaches a height of about 170 m (about 550 ft). West of the southern part of the Delta is the West Gulf Coastal Plain, drained by the Saline, Ouachita, and Red rivers.

B

Rivers and Lakes

Abundance of water is a distinctive feature of Arkansas. The entire state drains southeastward to the Mississippi River, which forms the eastern boundary of Arkansas. There the Mississippi flows and winds its way across a wide floodplain.

The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It rises as a small stream in the Rocky Mountains, and by the time it reaches Arkansas it is a great river flowing between broad banks. The water level on the river fluctuates seasonally. Other major rivers of the state are the Red River, which forms part of the boundary with Texas; the Ouachita River and its tributary, the Saline, which drain south-central Arkansas; the White River and its tributaries, the Black and the Little Red, which gather the runoff of northern Arkansas; and the Saint Francis River, in the northeast, which flows almost parallel to the Mississippi before joining it near Helena.

There are no large natural lakes in Arkansas. The largest bodies of water are reservoirs behind dams. Among the larger of these lakes are Beaver and Greers Ferry reservoirs, Bull Shoals Lake, and Lake Norfolk, all of which are located on the White River or its tributaries; Ozark Reservoir and Dardanelle and Nimrod lakes, all on the Arkansas River or its tributaries; Lake Ouachita, on the Ouachita River, Lake DeGray, on the Caddo River; and Millwood Reservoir, on the Little River, which is a tributary of the Red River.

C

Climate

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