Oklahoma () and is known informally by its nickname, The Sooner State. Formed by the combination of Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory on November 16, 1907, Oklahoma was the 46th state to enter the union. Its residents are known as Oklahomans, and its capital and largest city is Oklahoma City.
A major producer of natural gas, oil and agriculture, Oklahoma relies on an economic base of aviation, energy, telecommunications, and biotechnology. It has one of the fastest growing economies in the nation, ranking among the top states in per capita income growth and gross domestic product growth. Oklahoma City and Tulsa serve as Oklahoma's primary economic anchors, with nearly 60 percent of Oklahomans living in their metropolitan statistical areas.
With small mountain ranges, prairie, and eastern forests, most of Oklahoma lies in the Great Plains and the U.S. Interior Highlands—a region especially prone to severe weather. In addition to having a prevalence of German, Irish, British and Native American ancestry, more than 25 Native American languages are spoken in Oklahoma, the most of any state. It is located on a confluence of three major American cultural regions and historically served as a route for cattle drives, a destination for southern settlers, and a government-sanctioned territory for Native Americans. Part of the Bible Belt, widespread belief in evangelical Christianity makes it one of the most politically conservative states, though Oklahoma has more voters registered with the Democratic Party than with any other party.
Etymology
The name
Oklahoma comes from the
Choctaw phrase
okla humma, literally meaning
red people. Choctaw Chief Allen Wright suggested the name in 1866 during treaty negotiations with the federal government regarding the use of
Indian Territory, in which he envisioned an all-Indian state controlled by the United States Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Equivalent to the English word
Indian,
okla humma was a phrase in the Choctaw language used to describe the Native American race as a whole.
Oklahoma later became the
de facto name for
Oklahoma Territory, and it was officially approved in 1890, two years after the area was opened to white settlers. cover much of
southeastern Oklahoma.]]
Oklahoma has four primary mountain ranges: the Ouachita Mountains, the Arbuckle Mountains, the Wichita Mountains, and the Ozark Mountains. Contained within the U.S. Interior Highlands region, the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains mark the only major mountainous region between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians. More than 500 named creeks and rivers make up Oklahoma's waterways, and with 200 lakes created by dams, it holds the highest number of artificial reservoirs in the nation. Most of the state lies in two primary drainage basins belonging to the Red and Arkansas rivers, though the Lee and Little rivers also contain significant drainage basins.
Flora and fauna
inhabit the state's prairie ecosystems.]] Forests cover 24 percent of Oklahoma and
prairie grasslands composed of shortgrass, mixed-grass, and
tallgrass prairie, harbor expansive ecosystems in the state's central and western portions, although
cropland has largely replaced native grasses. Where rainfall is sparse in the western regions of the state, shortgrass prairie and
shrublands are the most prominent ecosystems, though
pinyon pines, red cedar (
junipers), and
ponderosa pines grow near rivers and creek beds in the far western reaches of the panhandle.
Marshlands,
cypress forests and mixtures of
shortleaf pine,
loblolly pine and deciduous forests dominate the state's
southeastern quarter, while mixtures of largely
post oak,
elm, white cedar (
Thuja) and
pine forests cover
northeastern Oklahoma. including the western portions of the
Ouachita National Forest, the largest and oldest national forest in the southern United States.
Climate
Oklahoma is located in a
temperate region and experiences occasional extremes of temperature and precipitation typical in a
continental climate. Most of the state lies in an area known as
Tornado Alley characterized by frequent interaction between cold and warm air masses producing
severe weather. An average 54
tornadoes strike the state per year—one of the highest rates in the world. As an example, on November 11, 1911, the temperature at Oklahoma City reached 83
°F in the afternoon (the record high for that date), then an incoming squall line resulted in a drop to 17
°F at midnight (the record low for that date); thus, both the record high and record low for November 11 were set
on the same day. Precipitation and temperatures fall from east to west accordingly, with areas in the southeast averaging an annual temperature of 62
°F (17
°C) and an annual rainfall of , while areas of the panhandle average 58 °F (14 °C), with an annual rainfall under . All of the state frequently experiences temperatures above 100 °F (38 °C) or below 0 °F (−18 °C), The state is home to the
Storm Prediction Center, the
National Severe Storms Laboratory, and the
Warning Decision Training Branch, all part of the
National Weather Service and located in
Norman.
During the 19th century, thousands of Native Americans were expelled from their ancestral homelands from across North America and transported to the area including and surrounding present-day Oklahoma. The Choctaw was the first of the "Five Civilized Tribes" to be removed from the southeastern United States. The phrase "Trail of Tears" originated from a description of the removal of the Choctaw Nation in 1831, although the term is usually used for the Cherokee removal. cattle ranches in Texas strove to meet the demands for food in eastern cities and railroads in Kansas promised to deliver in a timely manner. Cattle trails and cattle ranches developed as cowboys either drove their product north or settled illegally in Indian Territory. In 1881, four of five major cattle trails on the western frontier traveled through Indian Territory. The state ranks second in the nation for production of natural gas, and employment in the state's oil industry was outpaced by five other industries in 2007.
As of January 2010, the state's unemployment rate is 6.7%. The government sector provides the most jobs, with 326,000 in 2007, followed by the transportation and utilities sector, providing 285,000 jobs, and the sectors of education, business, and manufacturing, providing 191,000, 178,000, and 151,000 jobs, respectively. Tulsa is home to the largest airline maintenance base in the world, which serves as the global maintenance and engineering headquarters for American Airlines. The state is the top manufacturer of tires in North America and contains one of the fastest-growing biotechnology industries in the nation. In 2005, international exports from Oklahoma's manufacturing industry totaled $4.3 billion, accounting for 3.6 percent of its economic impact. As a whole, the oil energy industry contributes $23 billion to Oklahoma's gross domestic product, churning 178 thousand barrels of crude oil a day. Ten percent of the nation's natural gas supply is held in Oklahoma, with .
According to Forbes Magazine, Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corporation, Chesapeake Energy Corporation, and SandRidge Energy Corporation are the largest private oil-related companies in the nation, In 2006, Tulsa-based Semgroup ranked 5th on the Forbe's list of largest private companies, Tulsa-based QuikTrip ranked 46th, and Oklahoma City-based Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores ranked 25th in 2008 report. Tulsa's ONEOK and Williams Companies are the state's largest and second-largest companies respectively, also ranking as the nation's second and third-largest companies in the field of energy, according to Fortune Magazine. The magazine also placed Devon Energy as the second-largest company in the mining and crude oil-producing industry in the nation, while Chesapeake Energy ranks seventh respectively in that sector and Oklahoma Gas & Electric ranks as the 25th-largest gas and electric utility company. The state had 83,500 farms in 2005, collectively producing $4.3 billion in animal products and under one billion dollars in crop output with more than $6.1 billion added to the state's gross domestic product. Poultry and swine are its second and third-largest agricultural industries.
Culture
.]] Oklahoma is placed in the
South by the
United States Census Bureau, including the greatest number of tribal headquarters and 39 federally recognized nations.
Arts and theater
is one of the top 50 fine art museums in the United States.]] In the state's largest urban areas, pockets of
jazz culture flourish, and
Native American,
Mexican, and
Asian enclaves produce music and art of their respective cultures. The state has a rich history in ballet with five Native American ballerinas attaining world wide fame;
Yvonne Chouteau, sisters
Marjorie and
Maria Tallchief,
Rosella Hightower and
Moscelyne Larkin, known collectively as the
Five Moons. The
Tulsa Ballet, is rated as one of the top ballet companies in the United States by the
New York Times. The Oklahoma City Ballet and University of Oklahoma's dance program were formed by ballerina Yvonne Chouteau and husband
Miguel Terekhov. The University program was founded in 1962 and was the first fully accredited program of its kind in the United States. The collections of
Thomas Gilcrease are housed in the
Gilcrease Museum of Tulsa, which also holds the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art and artifacts of the American West. With remnants of the
Holocaust and artifacts relevant to Judaism, the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art of Tulsa preserves the largest collection of
Jewish art in the
Southwest United States. though its growth of total education expenditures between 1992 and 2002 ranked 22nd. In 2004, the state ranked 36th in the nation for the relative number of adults with
high school diplomas, though at 85.2 percent, it had the highest rate among southern states. also containing the only College of
Optometry in Oklahoma
In the 2007-2008 school year, there were 181,973 undergraduate students, 20,014 graduate students, and 4,395 first-professional degree students enrolled in Oklahoma colleges. Of these students, 18,892 received a bachelor's degree, 5,386 received a masters degree, and 462 received a first professional degree. This means the state of Oklahoma produces an average of 38,278 degree-holders per completions component (i.e. July 1, 2007-June 30, 2008). The national average is 68,322 total degrees awarded per completions component.
In 2000, Oklahoma ranked 45th in physicians per capita and slightly below the national average in nurses per capita, but was slightly over the national average in hospital beds per 100,000 people and above the national average in net growth of health services over a 12-year period. In 2006, there were more than 220 newspapers located in the state, including 177 with weekly publications and 48 with daily publications. More than 12,000 miles (19,000 km) of roads make up the state's major highway skeleton, including state-operated highways, ten turnpikes or major toll roads, Both ports are located on the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, which connects barge traffic from Tulsa and Muskogee to the Mississippi River via the Verdigris and Arkansas rivers, contributing to one of the busiest waterways in the world. five congressional districts, and a voting base with a majority in the Democratic Party. State officials are elected by plurality voting.
State government
The Legislature of Oklahoma consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives. As the lawmaking branch of the state government, it is responsible for raising and distributing the money necessary to run the government. The Senate has 48 members serving four-year terms, while the House has 101 members with two year terms. The state has a term limit for its legislature that restricts any one person to a total of twelve cumulative years service between both legislative branches. In descending order of population, Oklahoma's largest cities in 2007 were: Oklahoma City (547,274), Tulsa (384,037), Norman (106,707), Lawton (91,568), Broken Arrow (90,714), Edmond (78,226), Midwest City (55,935), Moore (51,106), Enid (47,008), and Stillwater (46,976). Of the state's ten largest cities, three are outside the metropolitan areas of Oklahoma City and Tulsa, and only Lawton has a metropolitan statistical area of its own as designated by the United States Census Bureau, though the metropolitan statistical area of Fort Smith, Arkansas extends into the state. though the percentage of people claiming American Indian as their only race was 8.1%. Most people from Oklahoma who self-identify as having American ancestry are of overwhelmingly English ancestry with significant amounts of Scottish and Welsh inflection as well. In 2006, 6.8% of Oklahomans were under the age of 5, 25.9% under 18, and 13.2% were 65 or older. Females made up 50.9% of the population.
Religion
Oklahoma is part of a geographical region characterized by widespread conservative
Christianity and
Evangelical Protestantism known as the "
Bible Belt". Spanning the Southeastern United States, the area is known for
politically and socially conservative views. Tulsa, the state's second largest city, home to
Oral Roberts University, is considered an apex of the region and is known as one of the "
buckles of the Bible Belt".
Oklahoma religious makeup:
Evangelical Protestant – 53% Mainline Protestant – 16% Catholic – 13% Other – 6%
Unaffiliated – 12%
State symbols
, Oklahoma's state mammal]] , depicts Oklahoma's state bird flying above its state wildflower.
:B. Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, other faiths each account for less than 1 percent. Jehovah's Witness, Mormons, Orthodox Christianity, and other Christian traditions each compose less than .5% percent. 1% refused to answer the Pew Research Center's survey.
References
Further reading
*
External links
General Government
Oklahoma's official web site Oklahoma Legislative Branch Oklahoma Judicial Branch Oklahoma State Constitution Oklahoma Department of Commerce Oklahoma Department of Human Services Oklahoma Department of Transportation Tourism and recreation
Oklahoma Tourism Board Official Oklahoma Tourism Info Oklahoma State Parks Oklahoma City Convention and Visitors Bureau Norman Convention and Visitors Bureau Tulsa Convention and Visitors Bureau Culture and history
Oklahoma Historical Society Oklahoma History Center Oklahoma State Guide from the Library of Congress Oklahoma Arts Council Oklahoma Theatre Association Oklahoma City History Tulsa Historical Society Newspapers
The Oklahoman Newspaper The Tulsa World Newspaper Maps and demographics
Oklahoma QuickFacts Geographic and Demographic information 2000 Census Oklahoma Demographics Information State highway maps Oklahoma Genealogical Society Realtime USGS geographic, weather, and geologic information
Category:States of the United States Category:Cherokee Nation (19th century) Category:States and territories established in 1907 Category:States of the Southern United States
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