|
Shop for Arkansas at ml-shopping.com
|
 |
Arkansas
-
Arkansas (pronounced /ˈɑ(r)k(ə)nˌsɑː/ or /ˈɑ(r)k(ə)nˌsɔ/) is a Southern state in the United States.
Geography
Map of Arkansas - PDF |
See: List of Arkansas counties, List of cities in Arkansas, List of Arkansas townships, List of Arkansas native plants.
The capital of Arkansas is Little Rock. Arkansas is the only state in the US 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. 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.
Petit Jean State Park, one of many attractions that give the state's nickname The Natural 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:
The Trail of Tears National Historic Trail also runs through Arkansas.
History
The early French explorers of the state gave it its name, which is probably a phonetic spelling for the French word for "downriver" people, a reference to the Quapaw people and the river along which they settled. Other Native American nations living in present-day Arkansas were Caddo, Cherokee and Osage Nations.
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 pronuniciation of the last syllable. (See Law and Government below).
Demographics
| Historical populations |
Census
year |
Population |
|
| 1810 |
1,062 |
| 1820 |
14,273 |
| 1830 |
30,388 |
| 1840 |
97,574 |
| 1850 |
209,897 |
| 1860 |
435,450 |
| 1870 |
484,471 |
| 1880 |
802,525 |
| 1890 |
1,128,211 |
| 1900 |
1,311,564 |
| 1910 |
1,574,449 |
| 1920 |
1,752,204 |
| 1930 |
1,854,482 |
| 1940 |
1,949,387 |
| 1950 |
1,909,511 |
| 1960 |
1,786,272 |
| 1970 |
1,923,295 |
| 1980 |
2,286,435 |
| 1990 |
2,350,725 |
| 2000 |
2,673,400 |
As of 2005, Arkansas has an estimated population of 2,779,154, which is an increase of 29,154, or 1.1%, from the prior year and an increase of 105,756, or 4.0%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 52,214 people (that is 198,800 births minus 146,586 deaths) and an increase due to net migration of 57,611 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 21,947 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 35,664 people. It is estimated that about 48.8% is male, and 51.2% is female.
People of American ancestry have a strong presence in the northwestern Ozarks and the central part of the state. Blacks live mainly in the fertile southern and eastern parts of the state, especially along the Mississippi river. Arkansans of British and German ancestry are mostly found in the far northwestern Ozarks near the Missouri border.
As of 2000, 95.0% of Arkansas residents age 5 and older speak English at home and 3.3% speak Spanish. French is the third most spoken language at 0.3%, followed by German at 0.3% and Vietnamese at 0.1%.
Religion
Arkansas, like most other Southern states, is overwhelmingly Protestant. The religious affiliations of the people are as follows:
- Christian – 86%
- Other Religions – <1%
- Non-Religious – 14%
Economy
The state's total gross state product for 2003 was $76 billion. Its Per Capita Personal Income for 2003 was $24,384, 50th in the nation. The state's agriculture outputs are poultry and eggs, soybeans, sorghum, cattle, cotton, rice, hogs, and milk. Its industrial outputs are food processing, electric equipment, fabricated metal products, machinery, paper products, bromine, and vanadium.
In recent years, automobile parts manufacturers have opened factories in eastern Arkansas to support auto plants in other states (though Arkansas does not yet have an auto plant itself, it is rumored to be a future site for a Toyota plant as well as for a truck plant to be built by Toyota's subsidiary Hino Motors).
Tourism is also very important to the Arkansas economy; the official state nickname "The Natural State" is prominently displayed in state tourism advertising.
The effect of Tyson Foods, Wal-Mart, J.B. Hunt and other multinational companies located in NW Arkansas cannot be understated. The area is currently in a long-running economic boom due to being the forefront of Global Trade. Wal-Mart alone accounts for $8.90 out of every $100 spent in U.S. retail stores.
Taxation
Arkansas imposes a state income tax with six brackets, ranging from 1% to 7%. The first $9,000 of military pay of enlisted personnel is exempt from Arkansas tax. Officers do not have to pay state income tax on the first $6,000 of their military pay. If you are a resident of Texarkana, your income is exempt from Arkansas income tax. Arkansas's gross receipts (sales) tax and compensating (use) tax rate is currently 6 percent. The state has also mandated that various services be subject to sales tax collection. They include wrecker and towing services; dry cleaning and laundry; body piercing, tattooing and electrolysis; pest control; security and alarm monitoring; self-storage facilities; boat storage and docking; and pet grooming and kennel services.
In addition to the state sales tax, there are more than 300 local taxes in Arkansas. Cities and counties have the authority to enact additional local sales and use taxes if they are passed by the voters in their area. These local taxes have a ceiling or cap; they cannot exceed $25 for each 1% of tax assessed. These additional taxes are collected by the state, which distributes the money back to the local jurisdictions monthly. Low-income taxpayers with a total annual household income of less than $12,000 are permitted a sales tax exemption for electricity usage.
Sales of alcoholic beverages account for added taxes. A 10 percent supplemental mixed drink tax is imposed on the sale of alcoholic beverages (excluding beer) at restaurants. A 4 percent tax is due on the sale of all mixed drinks (except beer and wine) sold for "on-premises" consumption. And a 3 percent tax is due on beer sold for off-premises consumption.
Transportation
Interstate highways
United States highways
| North-south routes |
East-west routes |
|
|
|
Major Arkansas highways
| North-south routes |
East-west routes |
|
|
|
Airports
Little Rock National Airport and Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport are Arkansas' main air terminals. Fort Smith and Texarkana have smaller airports with limited passenger service.
Law and government
The Arkansas State Capitol.
The current governor of Arkansas is Mike Huckabee, a Republican. Huckabee, who had been elected lieutenant governor in a 1993 special election, became governor in 1996 when Governor Jim Guy Tucker, a Democrat, was convicted as part of the Whitewater Scandal. This led to a state "Constitutional crisis" when Tucker refused to give up the governor's office for a short period of time, because the Arkansas Constitution does not allow a convicted felon to be governor of the state. Tucker had been lieutenant governor under Bill Clinton and had become governor as a result of Clinton's election to the presidency.
Arkansas' two U.S. Senators are Democrats Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor. The state has four seats in House of Representatives. Three seats are held by Democrats—Marion Berry (map), Vic Snyder (map), and Mike Ross (map). One seat is held by the state's lone Republican Congressman, John Boozman (map). The Democratic Party holds super-majority status in the Arkansas General Assembly. Republicans actually lost seats in the State House in 2004. A majority of local and statewide offices are also held by Democrats. This arrangement is extremely rare in the modern South, where a majority of statewide offices are held by Republicans. Arkansas had the distinction in 1992 of being the only state in the entire country to give the majority of its vote to a single candidate in the presidential election - Bill Clinton - while every other state's electoral votes were won by pluralities of the vote between the three candidates.
Most Republican strength lies mainly in northwest Arkansas in the area around Fort Smith, while the rest of the state is strongly Democratic. Arkansas has only elected one Republican to the United States Senate since Reconstruction and the Arkansas General Assembly has not been controlled by the Republican Party since Reconstruction, and is the fourth most heavily Democratic Legislature in the country, after Massachusetts, Hawaii, and Connecticut. Arkansas is also the only state among the states of the former Confederacy that sends two Democrats to the U.S. Senate. However, the state is perceived as generally being conservative – its voters passed a ban on gay marriage and Arkansas is one of a handful of states that has legislation on its books banning abortion in the event Roe vs. Wade is ever overturned.
In Arkansas, the lieutenant governor is elected separately from the governor and thus can be from a different political party.
Each office's term is four years long. Office holders are term-limited to two full terms plus any partial terms prior to the first full term.
Some of Arkansas' counties have two county seats, as opposed to the usual one seat. The arrangement dates back to when travel was extremely difficult in the states. The seats are usually on opposite sides of the county. Though travel is no longer the difficulty it once was, there are few efforts to eliminate the two seat arrangement where it exists, since the county seat is a source of pride (and jobs) to the city involved.
The state is the only one with a pronunciation specified by law. Section 105 of Chapter 4 of Title 1 of the Arkansas code[1] determined in 1881 the official, codified pronunciation of Arkansas: "It should be pronounced in three (3) syllables, with the final "s" silent, the "a" in each syllable with the Italian sound, and the accent on the first and last syllables." The same section states that the variation are-KAN-sas "is an innovation to be discouraged."
See also: List of Arkansas Governors
Important cities and towns
Education
Centers of research
Colleges and universities
Miscellaneous topics
Symbols
The following state symbols are officially recognized by the state law.
Famous Arkansans
- Main article: List of people from Arkansas
- Corliss Williamson, former NBA 6th Man of the Year and member of the 2004 NBA Champion Detroit Pistons. Lead the Arkansas Razorbacks to the 1994 NCAA title. Now a member of the Sacramento Kings. Born and raised in Russellville, Arkansas.
See also
Further reading
- Blair, Diane D. Arkansas Politics & Government: Do the People Rule? (1998)
- Deblack, Thomas A. With Fire and Sword: Arkansas, 1861-1874 (2003)
- Donovan, Timothy P. and Willard B. Gatewood Jr., eds. The Governors of Arkansas (1981)
- Dougan, Michael B. Confederate Arkansas (1982),
- Duvall, Leland. ed., Arkansas: Colony and State (1973)
- Fletcher, John Gould. Arkansas (1947)
- Hanson, Gerald T. and Carl H. Moneyhon. Historical Atlas of Arkansas (1992)
- Key, V. O. Southern Politics (1949)
- Moore, Waddy W. ed., Arkansas in the Gilded Age, 1874-1900 (1976).
- Peirce, Neal R. The Deep South States of America: People, Politics, and Power in the Seven Deep South States (1974)
- Thompson, George H. Arkansas and Reconstruction (1976)
- Whayne, Jeannie M. et al. Arkansas: A Narrative History (2002)
- Whayne, Jeannie M. Arkansas Biography: A Collection of Notable Lives (2000)
- White, Lonnie J. Politics on the Southwestern Frontier: Arkansas Territory, 1819-1836 (1964)
- Williams, C. Fred. ed. A Documentary History Of Arkansas (2005)
- WPA., Arkansas: A Guide to the State (1941)
External links
The content of this page is retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas under GFDL
|
| |
