Oregon

A name from a river

The name Oregon first shows up in writing as “Ouragon,” in a 1765 petition to the British crown by Major Robert Rogers, describing a great western river that was said to bear that name among Native peoples. That river is today’s Columbia, and the name passed to the Oregon Country and then to the state. Jonathan Carver popularized it in a 1778 travel book, writing of “the Oregon, or River of the West,” and William Cullen Bryant’s poem “Thanatopsis” helped fix it in American usage.

Where Rogers got the word is still argued. It may be a garbled French map label for the Wisconsin River, or linked to ooligan, the Chinook Jargon word for the candlefish, or to the Mohegan word wauregan, “the beautiful.” Scholars increasingly favor an Algonquian origin, and older guesses tying it to Spanish words have fallen out of favor.

From provisional government to statehood

In the 1840s the Oregon Country had a provisional government, with Oregon City as its seat from 1845. Oregon City remained the early capital of Oregon Territory. Oregon was admitted as the 33rd state by an act of Congress approved on February 14, 1859, and the seal and flag carry the year. The seal shows a covered wagon, an elk, mountains and the Pacific, where a British warship departs and an American ship arrives, under a banner reading “The Union.”

Salem

Salem’s road to becoming the capital was bumpy. A territorial act of 1851 named it the capital, but the governor disputed the choice until Congress confirmed it. In 1855 the legislature voted to move to Corvallis, only to return to Salem within the year. The 1857 constitution left the permanent seat of government to the voters, and in 1862 and 1864 Salem won by roughly two to one over Portland. Its marble Capitol was finished in 1938, after its predecessor burned. The capital page tells the story.

The Beaver State

The beaver is woven through Oregon’s history. Its fur drew traders to the region; heavy trapping then wiped it out of much of the state, until managed protection let it return to many waterways. A beaver appeared on the territorial seal and on the “beaver money” coined in 1849, and today it is on the back of the state flag, the only state flag with two different sides. Surprisingly, the beaver was formally adopted as the state animal only in 1969, after The Oregonian pointed out that the Beaver State had no state animal. The motto is Alis volat propriis, “She flies with her own wings.”

Meadowlarks, grapes and firs

Oregon has 34 official state symbols. The western meadowlark, chosen by schoolchildren in 1927, is the state bird, and the Oregon grape, a holly-like shrub with yellow flowers, the state flower since 1899. The Douglas-fir, the backbone of western Oregon’s timber economy, is the state tree, and the Chinook salmon the state fish. Oregon’s tastes run to hazelnuts, pears, marionberry pie, Dungeness crab and, since 2025, the T-bone steak; the state microbe is brewer’s yeast, a nod to the state’s craft brewers. See every symbol on the Oregon symbols page.

Land and people

Oregon covers 98,379 square miles, 9th among the states, and had about 4.27 million residents in 2025, 27th in the country. It stretches from the Pacific coast across the Cascade Range to the sagebrush country of the east, and borders Washington, Idaho, Nevada and California. Portland, with about 635,000 people, is the largest city, followed by Salem, Eugene, Gresham and Hillsboro.