Arkansas

The 25th state, admitted with a twin

Arkansas joined the Union on June 15, 1836, as the 25th state, in an act of Congress that also provided for Michigan’s admission. Congress liked to balance new slave and free states, and the two were paired: Arkansas came in as a slave state, Michigan as a free one, although Michigan did not actually join until January 1837. The Arkansas flag still remembers the pairing, with two matching stars for the twin states.

Arkansas had been part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, then of the Missouri Territory, and became a territory of its own in 1819. Its government sat first at Arkansas Post, an old French trading post near the mouth of the Arkansas River, before moving to Little Rock in 1821.

A name the legislature had to settle

The name came by way of French explorers. The Algonquian-speaking peoples to the north called the Quapaw, who lived near the mouth of the Arkansas River, by a name that the French wrote down in many forms: “Akansea” in the journal of Marquette and Joliet in 1673, “Acansa” on La Salle’s map. Over time the spelling settled as Arkansas. The pronunciation did not. By the late 1800s Arkansans were arguing over whether to say “Ar-KAN-sas,” like Kansas, or “Arkansaw.” In 1881 the General Assembly settled it by resolution: the name is spelled Arkansas and pronounced Arkansaw, and the rule is still in state law.

The Natural State

Arkansas has gone through more official nicknames than most states. The legislature adopted “the Wonder State” in 1923, promoted by former governor Charles Brough. In 1953 it switched to “the Land of Opportunity,” coined by a Little Rock business group and already on license plates. In 1995 it made “the Natural State” official, a phrase the state parks had been using since the 1980s to promote the Ozark and Ouachita mountains, rivers, lakes and forests. Older, unofficial names include the Bear State, for its once-plentiful black bears, and the Toothpick State, for the big Bowie knives, or “Arkansas toothpicks,” that Arkansas men carried.

The motto is Latin: Regnat populus, “The people rule.” It was on the seal for decades in a garbled form, Regnant populi, until a 1907 law corrected it.

Diamonds, quartz and bauxite

Arkansas has diamonds. Near Murfreesboro, an ancient volcanic pipe is now Crater of Diamonds State Park, where visitors search a plowed field for diamonds in their original volcanic rock and keep what they find. The largest diamond ever found in the United States, the 40.23-carat “Uncle Sam,” came from there in 1924. The diamond is the state gem and the reason for the white diamond on the flag.

The same 1967 law named quartz crystal the state mineral, mined in the Ouachita Mountains, and bauxite the state rock. For most of the 20th century Arkansas produced about 90 percent of the bauxite mined in the United States, and a Saline County town is named Bauxite.

Symbols old and new

Arkansas has 36 official symbols. The apple blossom dates from 1901, when the state grew hundreds of apple varieties, and the mockingbird from 1929. Newer ones reflect the state’s outdoors culture: the mallard became the state duck and the Labrador retriever the state dog in 2025, and the Bowie knife and the shotgun were adopted in 2019. The South Arkansas Vine Ripe Pink Tomato is both the state fruit and the state vegetable, and rice, of which Arkansas is the country’s leading producer, is the state grain. See all of them on the Arkansas symbols page.

Land and people

Arkansas covers 53,179 square miles, 29th among the states, and had about 3.11 million residents in 2025, 33rd. It borders six states: Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma, with the Mississippi River forming its eastern edge. The Ozark and Ouachita mountains cover the northwest and west, and the flat Delta farmland the east. Little Rock, near the center of the state, is the largest city, followed by fast-growing Fayetteville, Springdale and the rest of northwest Arkansas.