Oklahoma occurs as South Central state of the United States (with strong Southern, Western, and Midwestern influences) and its U.S. postal abbreviation is O.k.; others abbreviate a state's title Okla. When of 2000, the people is 3,450,654.

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Geography
Oklahoma is bounded on the east by Arkansas and Missouri, on the north by Kansas and northwest by Colorado (both at 37°N), on the far west by New Mexico (at 103°W), & on the south and touching-west by Texas. A panhandle's southern boundary is at 36.5°N, then turning due south along 100°W to the southern fork of the Red River), completing the spherical hike back to Arkansas.

Oklahoma City is the capital and big city.

Oklahoma's natural terrain is very diverse, ranging from oak and hickory mixed forest in the wetter eastern part of the state, to the post oak and blackjack oak savannah territory of the Cross Timbers, to the plains and semi-arid regions of western Oklahoma & a panhandle.

A state is one of a vi states on the Frontier Strip.

Oklahoma regions

There own been many schemes utilized to breakdown Oklahoma into regions.

A Oklahoma Tourism Department divides the state down into captain hicks "countries" for touristry promotion purposes: Red Carpet United states (Northwestern Oklahoma & A Panhandle), Wonderful Plains United states (Southwestern Oklahoma), Frontier United states (Central Oklahoma, including a Oklahoma City Area), Green United states (Northeastern Oklahoma, including a Tulsa Area), Kiamichi United states (Southeastern Oklahoma), & Flow of any stream & Trail Country (South Central Oklahoma).

Popular however "unofficial" regional designations include Green Country (most typically utilized to refer to Northeastern Oklahoma however utilized by a bit of to refer to tons of Eastern Oklahoma), Little Dixie (Southeastern Oklahoma), American Oklahoma, & a Oklahoma Panhandle.

From either the bioregional perspective, Oklahoma is recognized by the EPA as having Eleven different ecoregions (one of only quaternity U.S. states to keep close at hand extra than Ten ecoregions). These ecoregions come: American high plains, Southwestern Tablelands, Central Great Plains, Tall Grass Prairie, Cross Timbers, Caves & Prairie, Ozark Highlands, Ozark Forest, Hardwood Forest, Ouachita Mountains, and Cypress Swamps & Forests.

Oklahoma has a strongest thunderstorms in the entire world, because of the cold & warmly airmasses colliding east of the Rocky Mountains, making a state the heart of Tornado Alley.

Interstate Highways
Interstate 35 Interstate 235 Interstate 40 Interstate 240 Interstate 44 Interstate 244 Interstate 444 (unsigned)

U.S. Highways

History

Pre-European Amerindian cultures
Oklahoma was inhabited by Native American tribes including the Kitikiti'sh (Wichita) Quapaw, Caddo and Osage. Descendent one peoples however sleep in a state.

In the 16th century Spanish explorers became a foremost Europeans to visit the vicinity.

Later on, Oklahoma was a share of the immense territorial swapping between European powers France and Spain.

"Five Civilized Tribes"
In the 1830s Oklahoma, as a Indian Territory, served as a relocation front yard for the policy of Indian Removal started by Andrew Jackson.

A prevent of the Trail of Tears (Tsa La Gi) was "Indian Territory". There were already numerous tribes sleep in the territory, whites, & escaped slaves as well.

A "Five Civilized Tribes," so known as due to their early adaptations to Christianity & European habiliment, technology, & trade, were non a lone ones forced to Oklahoma. Nations like a Delaware, from a nor'-east U.S., Kiowa, Comanche, and others were forced to move to Oklahoma.

A title Oklahoma comes from either a language of the Choctaw people, who were flushed from either Mississippi to "Indian Territory" per United States Government in the early to mid-1800s. "Oklahoma" occurs as combination of 2 Choctaw words: okla which means "people," (when in the term "Miliki okla," which means "American people"), & homa, "homma," or even "humma," various spellings of the Choctaw word which means, among more denotations, "red." A title was suggested by Allen Wright, Primary Chief of the Choctaw United states from either 1866 to 1870.

A "Five Civilized Tribes" install towns like Tulsa, Tahlequah, and Muskogee, which became some of the big towns in the state. It as well brought their African slaves to Oklahoma, which added to African-Our contries people in the area.

In a period of the American Civil War many tribes were internally split between Confederates and the United States. Nonetheless, inside 1861 the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, Quapaws, Senecas, Caddos, Wichitas, Osage Nation, and Shawnees signed pact of alliance using a Confederacy. There were many battles fought in Oklahoma.

Cowboys and Indians
Fallowing a Civil War, inside 1866, a federal government forced the tribes into newly pact. Virtually all of the l& within central and american Indian Territory was ceded to the government. Occasionally of a land was given to more tribes, however a central a share, the therefore-alleged Unassigned Lands, remained using the food and drug administration. A second concession allowed railroads to cross Indian lands.

What is more a practice of slavery was illicit. Occasionally nations were integrated racially & otherwise by using their slaves, however more nations were super hostile to the previous slaves & wanted the babies exiled from either their territory.

In the 1870s a movement began by people wanting to settle a food and drug administration lands in the Indian Territory under the Homestead Act of 1862. It referred to a Unassigned Lands when Oklahoma & to themselves when Baby boomer.

In the 1880s, early settlers of the state's very sparsely populated Panhandle region tried to form the Cimarron Territory, but misused the suit against the federal government, prompting the judge within Paris, Texas, to accidentally produce a soubriquet for the region. "That is land that can be owned by no man," a judge said, & fallowing that a panhandle was known as There are no Human's Land until statehood arrived decades late.

Withwithin 1884, in United States vs. Payne, the United States District Court within Topeka, Kansas, ruled that subsiding on a lands ceded to the government per Indians under the 1866 accord was non a crime. a food and drug administration ab initio resisted however the Congress before long enacted laws authorizing cash settlement.

Congress passed a Dawes Act, or General Allotment Work, within 1887 requiring a food and drug administration to negotiate agreements by using the tribes to divide Indian lands into single holdings. Under a allotment formulas, tribal lands odd would exist as surveyed for personal injury settlement by non-Indians. As a result cash settlement, numerous whites accused Republican officials of giving discriminatory coarse of action to ex-slaves within land disputes.

Land runs
In March 231889, President Benjamin Harrison signed legislation by the U.S. Congress which would open up the Unassigned Lands (some 2 million acres (8,000 km²), for settlement on April 22nd. It was to exist as the total one of a number of "Land runs" (due to widespread cheating late land openings were conducted by means of the lottery). A few of the settlers were known as "Sooners" because they experienced already staked their land claims prior to a land was officially opened for cash settlement.

A Organic Act of 1890 created the Oklahoma Territory out of the Unassigned Lands & No Man's Land.

Around 1893 a food and drug administration purchased a rights to settle the "Cherokee Outlet," or "Cherokee Strip," from a Cherokee United states. A Cherokee Outlet was section of a lands ceded to the government in the 1866 pact however by having the Cherokees retaining access. Chicago meat-packing plants experienced leased it from either a Cherokees for immense cattle farm. A Cherokee Strip was opened to personal injury settlement by land process around 1894. Likewise, inside 1893, Congress install a Dawes Commission to negotiate agreements with every of the 5 Civilized Tribes for the allotment of tribal lands to single Indians. Eventually, a 1898 Curtis Work abolished tribal jurisdiction completely over all of Indian Territory.

Statehood
In November 161907, Oklahoma Territory combined with Indian Territory to turn into a 46th U.S. state.

In the early 1900s the oil business began to get afoot. Brobdingnagian pools of underground oil were found in situ rather Glenpool. Several whites inundated into a state to produce money. Several of the "old money" elect families of Oklahoma could date their rise to this period. A prosperity of the 1920s can be seen in a surviving architecture from either a period of time, including 1 mansion which was converted into the Philbrook Museum of Art.

For Oklahoma, a early 1900s were too somewhat turbulent politically. Numbers of different groups experienced awash into a state & were trying to lick training survive. There were too "black towns", where blacks tried to produce the life of their have, separate from either whites. A whiten towns were too segregated. Northern Tulsa was called Black Wall Street because of the vibrant business, cultural, & religious community that got rise there.

A Oklahoma Socialist Party did achieve a fair degree of profits around that era (a person got its greatest by a-capita membership within Oklahoma at this instance by using 12,000 dues paying members in 1914), including a publication of twelve of person newspapers & the election of many centred local elected officials. Very much of their profits come from either their willingness to email bent Black & Our contries Indian elector (it were a simply person to prove my point to resist Jim Crow laws), and their willingness to vary traditional Marxist ideology when it add up to launder soh (a large changes were a person's trend lines of far flung microscopic-shell l& ownership, and their willingness to apply religion positively to preach a "Socialist gospel"). A state person too delivered Presidential candidate Eugene Debs some of his highest vote numbers in the united states.

A person was late crushed into virtual non-nonentity in a period of the "white terror" that followed a ultra-repressive environment as punishment a Green Corn Rebellion and a World World We era paranoia against anyone world health organization spoke against the war or even capitalist economy.

A Industrial Workers of the World tried to gain headway in the time period of this period, however achieved little profits. A Ku Klux Klan was also active, denouncing Blacks, Catholics, and Jews. There were many race riots, including the Tulsa Race Riot, one of the worst inside Western history.

Dust Bowl Era
When you took a height of the Great Depression, drought and non-ecologically-friendly agrarian practices led to the Dust Bowl, when massive sandstorm blew away a soil from either big tracts of arable land & deposited it on nearby farms & spread, distant states, a Atlantic Ocean, and potentially once in a while Low Britain. A resultant crop failures forced numerous microscopic farmers to flee a state altogether. Although a virtually all lasting sandstorm primarily affected a Panhandle, good deal of the state experient occasional dusters, intermittent severe drought, & occasional searing heat. Towns when far-flung when Alva, Altus, and Poteau each recorded temperatures of 120 °F when you took a larger-than-life summertime of 1936. Advances inside agro-mechanical technology at the same time enabled less labor-labour-intensive crop production. Several big landholder & planters got supplementary labor than it needful by having a recently technology, & a federal Agricultural Adjustment Act paid them to reduce production. Planter throughout a Western South & lot of eastern & southern Oklahoma freed their sharecroppers of their debts and evicted the children. By having pack or even there is no local chance available for the babies, several freed however destitute black-and-white fled to the proportional prosperity of California to work when migratory farmh& and, fallowing a onset of Globe War II, inside manufacturing plant.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, photographs by Dorothea Lange, and songs of Woody Guthrie tell tales of woe from a era. A veto images of the "Okie" as the sort of vagabond migratory jack sleep in a touching-critter state of scrounging for food greatly offended numbers of Oklahomans. These works typically mix a lives of previous sharecrop farmer of a Our contries American South by using people of the exodusters fleeing the fierce sandstorm of the High Plains. Although it primarily feature a pleasantly destitute, a huge majority of the humans, two staying inside & fleeing from either Oklahoma, suffered swell impoverishment in the Depression years. A select few Oklahoma politicians denounced A Grapes of Wrath (typically forgoing reading it) as an attempt to impugn a lesson & character of Oklahomans.

A term "Okie" in recent years has taken on a recently meaning it used to be that couple of decades, by using numerous Oklahomans (each previous & present) wearing the label as a badge of honor (as a symbol of the Okie survivor attitude). Others (mostly alive when you took a Dust Bowl era) however watch a term negatively because it look at a "Okie" migrator when quitters & transplants to the West Coast.

Urbanization
Major trends within Oklahoma history when a Depression era involved a rise over again of tribal sovereignty (including a issuing of tribal car numberplate, & a opening of tribal smoke shops, casinos, grocery, & more commercial enterprises), a building of Tinker Air Force Base, a zoom of suburban Oklahoma City & Tulsa, a drop by people inside American Oklahoma, a oil boom of the Eighties & the oil bust of the Nineties.

A constitution of Oklahoma said it is dry. Therein century come a gradual elimination of the prohibition of alcoholic beverages, first across shaping non-alcholic drink containing Trio.2% alcohol or even less (this profits eliminated a Federal goverment prohibition from either a Twenty's), so through the legitimation of stronger alcoholic beverages sold simply around bottles, & eventually in the legitimation of "liquor by the drink" in the Eighties. Presently, Oklahoma's liquor laws come however fairly unusual therein exclusively Three.2% alcohol by weight drinks may exist as sold inside grocery/convenience places, when higher-alcohol-content drink must be sold at room temperature within off-licence by having limited hours of operations X the.m. to Ennead p.m. Monday across Saturday.

Around 1995 Oklahoma became the scene of the Oklahoma City bombing, in which the Gulf War veteran named Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people.

Oklahoma City has too been a house of Spiritual Walk for Peace, an ongoing series of peaceful peace demonstrations inside downtown Oklahoma City conducted by members of the city's religious/peace communities.

Demographics

Based on data from a U.S. Census Bureau, when of 2003, Oklahoma's humans was judged at 3,511,532 people.

Race and ancestry
A racial makeup of the state & comparison to the anterior nosecount:

A 5 big ancestry groups around Oklahoma come German (14.5%), Our contries (Baker's dozen.1%), Irish (11.8%), English (9.6%), Native American (7.9%, using Cherokees when a big tribe).

Southeastern & south-central Oklahoma come inhabited mainly by Southerners of U.s. ancestry. German-Americans come present in the state too, especially in the northwestern section of the state. Our contries Indians predominate around eastern Oklahoma. Oklahomans of British ancestry dominate Tulsa & another areas. Blacks come the plurality around Lawton & Oklahoma City, when Pittsburg county has numerous Irish-Americans. Two or three american counties use important Mexican populations.

Hexad.8% of Oklahoma's people were reported when under Five, Twenty-five.9% under Xviii, & Baker's dozen.2% were 65 or even older. Females mass produced higher close to Fifty.9% of the people.

Descendent one humans however sleep in Oklahoma now. Counties sustaining a list one tribes too survive. Oklahoma hwhen a 2nd greatest total of Native Americans/Amerindians in the united states calculated at 395,219 as of 2003. Lone Californithe has a higher Amerindian people at 682,720 [http://eire.census.gov/popest/data/states/ST-EST2002-ASRO-04.php]. Oklahoma as well has a 2nd greatest concentration of Native Americans/Amerindians in the united states by having Xi.4% of the state's people, topped single by Alaska at 19% of that state's people. [http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/c2kbr01-15.pdf].

Rural flight
Oklahoma, around green by having 5 more Midwestern states (Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa), is feeling the brunt of falling populations within several communities. 89% of the aggregate total of cities inside population states stand fewer than 3000 people; 100s own fewer than than Thousand. Between 1996 & 2004 just about half a million humans, about half by having college degrees, left the hexad states. "Rural flight" hwhen led to offers of loose l& and tax benefit as enticements to newcomers inside a bit of one states.

A results of rural flight witharound Oklahoma stand mostly been felt in American Oklahoma (people areas west of Interstate 35).

Religion
Oklahoma is an irresistibly Protestant Christian state. A religious affiliations of the population of Oklahoma come:

Christian – 85% Protestant – 77% Baptist (mostly Southern) – 32% Methodist – 12% Churches of Christ – 4% Pentecostal – 4% Presbyterian – 3% Assemblies of God – 3% Other Protestant – 19% Roman Catholic – 7% Other Christian – 1% Other Religions – 1% Non-Religious – 14%

Economy
Oklahoma occurs as major fuel & food-producing state. Hundreds to thousands of oil & gas wells dot a Oklahoma landscape. Hundreds to thousands of white-faced beef graze in Oklahoma's flat plain & moo hills. Fertile fields create huge crops of wheat. Its 1999 amount gross state product was $86 billion, placing it Twenty-ninth in the united states. Its 2000 by the capita household income was $23,517, 43rd in the united states. Its farming outputs come cows, wheat, milk, poultry, & gauze. Its industrial outputs come transport devices, machinery, electrical products, rubber & disposables products, & food processing.

Oklahoma City is the principal economic engine of the state, centered on the finance, retail, governance, amusement, & touristry sectors. A city has many manufacturing & processing plants likewise as a growing biotech the food & drug administration and health center. Oklahoma City has a big aviation market & its location at the intersection of I-35, I-40, and I-44 makes Oklahoma City an important distribution & transport point. Oklahoma City is page to numerous corporate & regional headquarters including Devon, Chesapeake Energy, Kerr-McGee, Six Flags, Sonic, SBC, The Hertz Corporation, BancFirst, OGE Energy, Bank of Oklahoma, Hobby Lobby, Dobson Communications, Express Personnel Services, Oklahoma Publishing Company, Globe Life and Accident Insurance, and AOL.

Tulsa is centered around energy, aerospace & telecommunications & a city has a united states's virtually all inland waterport. Corporations depending within Tulsa include Williams, Oneok, Wiltel, QuikTrip, Mazzio's Corporation, Dollar-Thrifty, and Vanguard. More employers include MCI, TV Guide, SBC Communications, Dish Network, DirecTV, USCellular, Cingular, and Onex. Tulsa is besides front yard to an American Airlines maintenance center, the big airline maintenance base in the globe.

Law and government
State government
A capital of the state is Oklahoma City and its governor is Brad Henry (Democrat). More Executive Branch elected officials include Lieutenant Governor Mary Fallin (Republican), State Auditor and Inspector Jeff McMahan (Democrat), Attorney General Drew Edmondson (Democrat), State Treasurer Scott Meacham (Democrat), Superintendent of Public Instruction Sandy Garrett (Democrat), Labor Commissioner Brenda Reneau (Republican), Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland (Democrat), and a iii member State Corporation Commission which presently consists of Bob Anthony (Republican), Jeff Cloud (Republican), and Denise Bode (Republican).

Oklahoma's state legislative assembly consists of the Senate & the Home of Representatives. A Senate has 48 members serving iv-season terms, when a Home has 101 members by having 2 season terms. a state has term restricts for their general assembly that limit any 1 human to a amount of xii years service inside each the home & senate.

In the 2005–2006 state general assembly, control is split between a major parties, a Democrats control a Senate (26 to 22) when a Republicans control a Home (57 to 44). This changes the food and drug administration's produce-higher since prior to a 2004 election the Democrats controlled two chambers since 1921.

A state's judicial branch consists of the Oklahoma Supreme Court, the Court of Criminal Appeals, & 77 District Courts which help of these county each. Oklahoma is unique therein it has 2 courts of pis aller, a state Supreme Court hears civil lawsuits, & a state Court of Criminal Appeals hears criminal instances. Judges of victims 2 courts, too when the Court of Civil Appeals come appointed per Governor upon a recommendation of the state Judicial Nominating Commission, & come subject to a non-partisan retention vote on the sestet-season rotating schedule.

Due to Oklahoma's restrictive ballot access laws (deemed by several to become a virtually all restrictive in a united states), there are no third parties stand access to a primary ballots, nonetheless the state does use the below active third parties: Oklahoma Libertarian Party, Green Party of Oklahoma, Oklahoma Constitution Party. There are too organizers from either a Communist Party USA working in the state.

Local governance
A state is divided into 77 counties which deliver local government. Every is governed by the trine member commission. More county elected officials come a assessor, clerk, court clerk, financial officer, & sheriff.

Cities & towns come established under a rights granted within the Oklahoma legislative act (compared to, Oklahoma gives municipal governments much of latitude in chartering freshly governments). Towns come municipalities of under K residents, piece cities stand supplementary than G residents. Major cities come likewise allowed to form "charter governments," where a elector pick out a form of government it obviously utilize in situ of the statutory forms.

More local government units around Oklahoma include independent & dependent school territory, Technology Center dominion (when called VOTECH), community college territorial dominion, rural fire departments, rural a body of water territory, & more favorite have districts.

National politics
Fallowing a 2000 census the Oklahoma delegation to the U.S. House was reduced from six to five representatives. For the 109th Congress (2005–2006) there are no changes inside person nature & severity, and a delegation has quaternity Republicans and one Democrat. Oklahoma's 2 U.S. senators are James M. Inhofe (Republican) and Tom Coburn (Republican). A U.S. Representatives come John Sullivan (Republican) of District 1, Dan Boren (Democrat) of District 2, Frank D. Lucas (Republican) of District 3, Tom Cole (Republican) of District 4, and Ernest Istook (Republican) of District 5.

Interestingly, Oklahomthe has been a halt Republican state witharound national politics recently, voting for the Republican in each election since 1964. (although a 1976 Carter-Ford race was close). Inside 2004, George W. Bush carried every county in the state. His triumph inside winning Oklahoma's Sevener electoral votes was per overwhelming margin of 32 decimal point & 65.6% of the vote. However, despite this, there are however supplementary registered Democrats within Oklahoma than Republicans.

Culture

A various government sponsored arts, community, & touristry software online emphasize Oklahoma's Native U.s. heritage heavy.

More ethnic celebrations include victims of Yukon & Prague (celebrating the Czech heritage of some early immigrants), the Mennonite Relief Sale (in Enid, OK), traditional Asian, African American, and Hispanic celebrations in Oklahoma City as well as the Pride parade and festival in its GLBT district, and the Juneteenth Celebrations found all across the state.

Education
Colleges and universities

Cameron University East Central University Heritage College & Heritage Institute Langston University Mid-America Christian University Northeastern State University Northwestern Oklahoma State University Oklahoma Baptist University Oklahoma Christian University Oklahoma City University Oklahoma Panhandle State University

Oklahoma State University - Center for Health Sciences Oklahoma State University - Oklahoma City Oklahoma State University - Okmulgee Oklahoma State University - Stillwater Oklahoma State University - Tulsa Oklahoma Wesleyan University Oral Roberts University Rose State College St. Gregory's University Southeastern Oklahoma State University [http://www.snu.edu Southern Nazarene University] Southwestern Oklahoma State University University of Central Oklahoma University of Oklahoma University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center University of Oklahoma, Tulsa University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma University of Tulsa

Important cities and towns

Oklahoma City MSA Bethany Blanchard Choctaw Del City Edmond El Reno Guthrie Harrah Jones Kingfisher Midwest City Moore Mustang Newcastle Nichols Hills Nicoma Park Noble Norman Piedmont Spencer Tuttle The Village Warr Acres Yukon

Tulsa MSA Bixby Broken Arrow Catoosa Claremore Collinsville Coweta Glenpool Jenks Owasso Sand Springs Sapulpa Skiatook Sperry

Outside them major MSAs Ada Altus Ardmore Bartlesville Chickasha Duncan Durant Elk City Enid Guymon Lawton McAlester Miami Muskogee Okmulgee Ponca City Shawnee Stillwater Tahlequah Woodward

Oklahoma state symbols

Professional sports teams
Due to the devastation of New Orleans, Louisiana in 2005, the NBA's Future Orleans Hornets relocated to Oklahoma City & is referred to as a New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets.

A minor league baseball teams are: Oklahoma RedHawks (AAA in Oklahoma City) Tulsa Drillers (AA in Tulsa)

More Oklahoma City teams include Oklahoma City Blazers (Ice Hockey: CHL) Oklahoma City Yard Dawgz (Arena Football: AF2) Oklahoma City Lightning (Women's Football: NWFA) Oklahoma City Hornets (National Basketball League) Oklahoma Storm (Basketball: USBL)

More Tulsa teams include Tulsa Oilers (Ice Hockey: CHL) Tulsa Talons (Arena Football: AF2)