Arkansas is a Southern state in the United States. The capital of Arkansas is Little Rock. Arkansas is the only state in the U.S. where diamonds are found naturally (near Murfreesboro, Arkansas). The eastern border for most of Arkansas is the Mississippi River except in Clay and Greene counties where the St. Francis River forms the western boundary of the Missouri Bootheel.
Alma Arkadelphia Batesville Beebe Bella Vista Benton Bentonville Blytheville Brinkley Bryant Cabot Camden Carlisle Clarksville Clinton Conway De Queen Dumas El Dorado Eureka Springs Fairfield Bay Fayetteville Fordyce Forrest City Fort Smith Hardy Harrison Hazen Heber Springs Heth Hope Horseshoe Bend Hot Springs Hot Springs Village Jacksonville Johnson Jonesboro Lake Village Little Rock Lonoke Lowell Magnolia Malvern Marion Maumelle Monticello Morrilton Mountain Home Mountain View Newport North Little Rock Osceola Ozark Paragould Pine Bluff Pocahontas Rogers Russellville Searcy Siloam Springs Smackover Springdale Star City Stuttgart Texarkana Trumann Van Buren Warren West Memphis Wheatley White Hall Wynne
Arkansas shares its southern border with Louisiana, its northern border with Missouri, its eastern border with Tennessee and Mississippi, and its western border with Texas and Oklahoma. Arkansas is a beautiful land of mountains and valleys, thick forests and fertile plains. Northwest Arkansas is part of the Ozark Plateau including the Boston Mountains, to the south are the Ouachita Mountains and these regions are divided by the Arkansas River; the southern and eastern parts of Arkansas are called the Lowlands.
The so called Lowlands are better known as the Delta and the Grand Prairie. The land along the Mississippi River is referred to as the "Delta" of Arkansas. It gets this name from the formation of its rich alluvial soils formed from the flooding of the mighty Mississippi. The Grand Prairie is slightly away from the Mississippi River in the southeast portion of the state and consists of a more undulating landscape. Both are fertile agricultural areas and home to much of the crop agriculture in the state.
Arkansas is home to many caves, such as Blanchard Springs Caverns.
Arkansas is home to many areas protected by the National Park System. These include:
* Arkansas Post National Memorial at Gillett * Buffalo National River * Fort Smith National Historic Site * Hot Springs National Park * Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site * Pea Ridge National Military Park
The Trail of Tears National Historic Trail also runs through Arkansas.
The first European who arrived in Arkansas was the Spaniard Hernando de Soto, explorer at the end of the 16th Century. The early Spanish or French explorers of the state gave it its name, which is probably a phonetic spelling for the French or Catalan word for "downriver" people, a reference to the Quapaw people and the river along which they settled. Other Native American nations that lived in Arkansas prior to westward movement were the Quapaw, Caddo, and Osage Nations. While moving westward, the Five Civilized Tribes inhabited Arkansas during the territorial period. The Five Civilized Tribes are the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole. They were recognized as the "civilized tribes" because they eventually adopted Western customs such as plantation living and Christianity. Prior to statehood, it was known as the Arkansaw Territory.
On June 15, 1836, Arkansas became the 25th state of the United States as a slave state. Arkansas refused to join the Confederate States of America until after Abraham Lincoln called for troops to invade South Carolina. It seceded from the Union on May 6, 1861. The state was the scene of numerous small-scale battles during the American Civil War. Under the Military Reconstruction Act, Congress readmitted Arkansas in June 1868.
In 1881, the Arkansas state legislature enacted a bill that adopted "arkansaw" as the official pronunciation - note the distinct pronunciation of the last syllable.
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