12 Incredible, Almost Unbelievable Facts About Arkansas
By J.B. VanDyke|Published April 19, 2016
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J.B. VanDyke
Author
J.B. Weisenfels has lived in rural Arkansas for three decades. She is a writer, a mom, and a graduate student. She is also an avid collector of tacky fish whatnots, slightly chipped teapots, and other old things. In her spare time she enjoys driving to the nearest creek to sit a while. If you were to visit her, she'd try to feed you cornbread.
Are you ready for more fun facts about Arkansas? This time we’ve got some real stunners. You can find facts ranging from size to rice production to miles of rivers. Read on for 12 incredible facts you may not believe.
1. Arkansans help each other. Though one of the poorest states in the union, Arkansas is also one of the most generous states. Arkansans donated 6.3% of their discretionary income to various charities in 2011.
Arkansas has 18.8 million acres of forested land. Switzerland is only about 10.2 million acres.
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3. Even though we’re a small state, you could fit the entirety of Greece into Arkansas and have almost enough room left over for Puerto Rico. We’d be happy to take some of those beaches off their hands:
5. It might not look like it on a map because of the irregular shape, but the widest points in Arkansas’s height and width are only separated by 22 miles.
6. To keep the population density the same, you’d need more than two and and a half times the number of current Arkansas residents to fill up New York City.
7. On average, Arkansas gets about twice as much precipitation as California. Drought or not, that's pretty crazy because California is three times bigger than Arkansas.
Really, Fort Smith got too much rain last year. The Arkansas River flooded.
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9. Arkansas produces more rice than any other state. Rice production in Arkansas is a $6 billion industry. That means the rice industry brings almost as much money into the state as all of Dillard’s, the Little Rock based national retail chain.
10. There are 9,700 miles of streams and rivers in Arkansas. You’d only drive about 2,813 miles if you left from San Francisco, California and arrived in Washington D.C.
11. Arkansas is the Natural State indeed. We’ve got 2.5 million acres of national forest, fifty state parks, seven national scenic byways, and three state scenic byways.
12. Arkansas is home to the first piece of land protected by the United States government for recreational use. First named Hot Springs Reservation, now called Hot Springs National Park, the land was protected before the concept of a National Parks Service was invented.
