The word Oklahoma is derived from two Choctaw words: okla, “people,” and humma, “red.” During the 19th century the future state was a symbol of one of the least glorious chapters in American history, becoming known as Indian Territory, the dumping ground for eastern Native American tribes displaced by settlers’ ever-increasing hunger for land. Since its admission in 1907 as the 46th state of the union, however, Oklahoma has achieved an integration of its Native American citizens into modern economic and social life that probably is unmatched by any other state. There is no reservation in the usual sense for the Native American population. Though poverty is endemic among them, many Oklahoma Indians have risen to positions of distinction, and tribal revenue distributions have enabled many more to share in the great wealth that petroleum resources have brought to the state.
Once basically agricultural—and the Dust Bowl locale of John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath—Oklahoma now has hundreds of lakes, many of them man-made, and an increasingly diversified economy in which tourism is ever more important. The customs of the Deep South are maintained in the habits and attitudes of southern Oklahoma—“Little Dixie”—despite the decline in cotton production. The customs of the wheat growers in the north, however, reflect their largely Kansan origins. Area
Lying in a transitional zone in topography, climate, and other features, both east to west and north to south, Oklahoma comprises a number of environments—from mountainous to plains, semiarid to humid, and grassland to forest.
Three of the country’s large physiographic regions extend into or across the state. The Interior Highlands (Ozark Plateaus and Ouachita provinces) cover part of eastern Oklahoma; the Atlantic Plain (Coastal Plain provinces), extending through Texas to the Gulf of Mexico, is in the southeast; and the Interior Plains, including the Central Lowland and Great Plains provinces, cover the remainder. Ten subregions lie within Oklahoma. Three are mountainous and in the south—the Ouachita, Arbuckle, and Wichita mountains—and are characterized by rough topography and thin soils; lumbering, grazing, some farming, and mining are their principal economic activities, although these are being surpassed by recreation and tourism. The northeastern Ozark Plateaus province, most of which lies in Missouri and Arkansas, has rough terrain and small fields devoted primarily to growing fruits and vegetables. Once important as a lead and zinc producer, the plateau region has a Cherokee heritage and beautiful rivers that make it a major recreation and tourist attraction.
The Sandstone Hills, a wide band stretching through the east-central portion of the state between the Red River and the Kansas border, lacks timber and is a poor site for agriculture but is important for its oil, gas, and coal deposits. The region is sprinkled with deserted or dying oil-boom towns, with Tulsa a prosperous exception. The sparsely populated Gypsum Hills section of western Oklahoma is devoted largely to grazing and farming, with large wheat acreages in the north and smaller cotton farms in the south.
The remaining four subregions are flat to rolling and are agricultural. The Red River Plains, once the area of the best farmlands in the state, has been depleted by cotton cultivation. Its agriculture has been diversified by the addition of peanuts (groundnuts), melons, and vegetables grown on medium-sized plots. Its population is relatively dense, with many small towns serving as trade centres. The Prairie Plains region in the northeast is marked by grazing in its rougher portions and vegetable farms in the river valleys. Oil and gas fields are common, as is strip-mining for coal. It contains a number of middle-sized towns, some of which have small manufacturing plants. The Red Beds Plains constitute the largest of Oklahoma’s 10 subregions, running through the middle of the state. Both Oklahoma’s greatest population density and most of its larger towns are located there; oil provides much of the income. Although cotton rules in the south and wheat in the north, corn (maize), watermelons, sorghum, alfalfa, vegetables, and livestock are common. The sparsely populated High Plains region, encompassing the Panhandle and a small adjacent portion of northwestern Oklahoma, offers a marked contrast. With the highest elevation and the least moisture, the eastern portion of this region is dominated by wheat and natural gas production and the western by grazing.
Oklahoma’s drainage pattern, consisting of the Arkansas and Red rivers and their tributaries, slopes from an elevation of 4,973 feet (1,516 metres) at Black Mesa in the northwest to about 300 feet (90 metres) on the Red River in the southeast. Most of Oklahoma’s lakes and reservoirs are man-made, having been created through the damming of rivers and streams for the purposes of flood control, the generation of hydroelectric power, or the creation of recreational opportunities. The largest body of water in the state in terms of volume is Lake Texoma, on the Texas-Oklahoma border. It is impounded by a dam (completed 1944) on the Red River near Denison, Texas. Dams on tributaries of the Red River and on streams belonging to the Arkansas River system have similarly impounded many man-made lakes. Generally, the only natural lakes in Oklahoma are oxbow lakes and playas, which usually evaporate for at least a portion of the year.
Precipitation varies from more than 45 inches (1,140 mm) annually in the Ouachitas to less than 16 inches (400 mm) in the Panhandle. Wheat and sorghum predominate in the drier western sections of the state, peanuts thrive in the middle areas, and corn, soybeans, vegetables, and berries grow in the damper east. Irrigation has made corn a successful crop in the dry Panhandle. Virtually all of the regions have enough water for grass; hence, ranching is common.
Oklahoma has a southern humid belt merging with a colder northern continental one and humid eastern and dry western zones that cut through the state. The result is normally pleasant weather and an average annual temperature of about 60 °F (16 °C), increasing from northwest to southeast. No region is free from wind; and, as . As the collision point for warm and cold air masses, with sudden rises and falls in temperature, the state has heavy thunderstorms, blizzards, and tornadoes. Especially damaging and deadly tornadoes struck the cities of Snyder (May 1905), Woodward (April 1947), and Moore (May 2013), and large areas of the state were affected by outbreaks of tornadoes in May 1955 and May 1999.
Oklahoma is a transitional area for plant and animal life. More than 130 species of trees are native: the . The eastern forests of maple, sweet gum, hickory, oak, and pine change into the cottonwood, elm, hackberry, and blackjack and post oaks of the grasslands. The arid-zone plants are chiefly mesquite, sage, and cacti. Among animals are deer, elk, antelope, rabbits, coyotes, wolves, foxes, prairie dogs, and American bison. Native fish include bass, perch, catfish, and buffalo, and virtually every bird common to the land between the Mississippi River and the Rockies is found, especially in the stream-laced eastern part of the state. Horned toads, lizards, many varieties of nonpoisonous snakes, and rattlesnakes and water moccasins are native.
People from a wide range of ethnic and geographic origins have contributed to Oklahoma’s population. Some three-fourths of the population is of European (“white”) ancestry; African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics each constitute slightly less than one-tenth of the population. The original French claimants left their names and bloodlines, usually in conjunction with Native American families, and a mining boom in the 1870s brought Europeans into the Choctaw Nation. Descendants of these Italian, Slavic, Greek, Welsh, Polish, and Russian miners still live in Little Dixie. The land runs brought homesteaders from China, Japan, Mexico, England, France, and Canada, and the spread of wheat farming beginning in the late 1800s attracted German Mennonites and Czechs to the northwest. By the 1980s sizable groups of Mexicans and Vietnamese also had arrived. Nearly all of Oklahoma’s residents, however, reflect a typically Midwestern American culture.
The state’s religious sects bear out this trend toward conformity. Of the Protestant majority, Southern Baptists and United Methodists predominate, and the political and cultural conservatism that is a result of their presence has placed Oklahoma in the Bible Belt. (The fundamentalism of these groups was a primary cause for Oklahoma’s retention of the prohibition of liquor sales until 1959.) Other leading denominations include the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Assemblies of God, Churches of Christ, Roman Catholicism, and Episcopalianism. Members of the Greek Orthodox faith are represented throughout the state only in small numbers, and Jewish congregations are limited to the cities.
Most Native Americans have adopted some form of religion with European origins, although the Native American church—in which use of the drug peyote is a part of the worship—is recognized by state charter. The Sun Dance and Ghost Dance of the western groups reflect earlier religious practices and reactions to white settlement.
The outlines of roads and farms in Oklahoma generally produce a pattern of unusual symmetry in the landscape, revealing the original survey divisions into townships, sections, and quarter sections. Small squares predominate where small-scale farming is common and very large ones where wheat and ranching prevail. As elsewhere in the country, however, the trend has been toward urbanization; some two-thirds of the state’s population lives in urban areas. The Red Beds in the centre of the state grew most rapidly, and several of the state’s major cities are found there.
Most of Oklahoma’s Native Americans live in the former Indian Territory in the eastern part of the state, though the Plains tribes remain in western Oklahoma. Some Native Americans live on tribal landholdings that are informally called reservations. Most African Americans are descended from people enslaved by the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole (who are sometimes referred to as the Five Civilized Tribes), although some migrated from the South after 1865 and others came during the land runs that began in 1889. The majority live in urban centres or in the southern and eastern parts of the state, and several towns have entirely African American populations.
Oklahoma City is near the centre of the state. In area it is one of the larger cities in the country. Banking, insurance, manufacturing, trade and transportation, state and federal installations, and educational facilities have made it the commercial and industrial heart of the state. Tinker Air Force Base, located in nearby Midwest City, is the metropolitan area’s largest employer. Lawton is a centre for Fort Sill Military Reservation, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, and the rural population of the area. Norman, seat of the University of Oklahoma and site of the major state psychiatric hospital, is also a bedroom community for Oklahoma City and Midwest City commuters. Tulsa, a former Creek Indian village in the Sandstone Hills region, grew slowly until the discovery of oil nearby. Refineries and facilities for manufacturing and distributing oil-field supplies have made it the headquarters for many oil companies, and it has many other financial and industrial functions. Enid is the home of Vance Air Force Base and is the marketing centre for a prosperous agricultural community.
Oklahoma’s economy is not as balanced as those of many other U.S. states. There has in the past been overdependence on agriculture and petroleum, but the efforts of state and local officials to attract new forms of industry as well as tourism have shown some success. The annual per capita income is significantly below the national average, as is the median household income.
Oklahoma remains something of an economic satellite of the industrial North and East, furnishing food, raw materials, and fuels to them. Despite the state’s great efforts to diversify—for example, the manufacture of transportation equipment has become important—just over one-tenth of its workers are in manufacturing, lower than the national average. Services employ the greatest number of people, followed by wholesale and retail trade, manufacturing, finance, insurance and real estate, transportation and public utilities, construction, and mining.
Traditionally, agriculture has furnished an important part of Oklahoma’s income, though Oklahoma’s farms, which are slightly larger than the national average, have slightly less value per acre. In line with national trends, the averages are likely to remain the same, but the number of units will probably continue to decline. In commercial agricultural production, livestock ranks first, followed by wheat, dairy products, cotton, soybeans, and other field crops and general produce. Less than one-fifth of the state is forested. Commercially exploitable timber primarily consists of softwoods, mostly harvested in the southeast.
Oklahoma ranks high nationally in the value of mineral production, which includes petroleum, natural gas, natural gas liquids, coal, and stone. Oil and gas production historically have been the major components of Oklahoma’s economy. Networks of pipelines move the petroleum products to refineries and markets throughout the region and elsewhere in the country. Fluctuations in oil prices—such as those in the 1980s—have sometimes reduced the importance of oil and gas and caused widespread economic depression at various points in the state’s history, evidenced by a large number of bank failures in Oklahoma in the 1980s and early 1990s. Coal and gas are the two main sources of power generation; together they produce nearly all the state’s electric power. The late 20th and early 21st centuries saw the addition of geothermal and wind-energy sources to the power mix; both showed great potential to replace fossil fuels in the future. In July 2000 the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, and the Oklahoma Department of Commerce created an alliance known as the Oklahoma Wind Power Initiative.
Manufactured goods constitute a minor proportion of Oklahoma’s economy, as compared to the production of raw materials. The manufacture of electronics and communications equipment, industrial machinery, and transportation equipment is the mainstay of the sector. The first major commercial pulp and paper plant in the state was established in 1970, and several international manufacturers have located mills and packaging facilities in towns around the state.
Services are one of Oklahoma’s dominant economic activities, and government is the largest single employer. Much activity in the tourist sector surrounds the state’s Western heritage, Native American attractions, and outdoor activities throughout Oklahoma’s diverse terrain. The state’s union membership rate is significantly lower than the national average; in a 2001 referendum, voters approved antiunion right-to-work legislation.
For financial support of its functions, Oklahoma relies basically on taxes on petroleum, natural gas, gasoline, income, and sales. Property taxes are used largely for the support of county, municipal, and school needs. A major check on spending since 1941 has been Oklahoma’s “budget-balancing” amendment, by which the legislature is forbidden to appropriate more money than in the previous year plus estimated additional revenues.
Oklahoma’s transportation facilities help account for its favourable record in attracting new industry. The state has well-developed networks of roads and highways and of railroads. Amtrak provides passenger train service between Oklahoma City and points in Oklahoma and Texas. Tulsa and Oklahoma City are the major transport hubs. The state’s major airport, Will Rogers World Airport, is located in Oklahoma City; regional facilities are in Lawton and Tulsa. A barge system carries cargo from Tulsa to the Gulf of Mexico by way of locks and dams on the Arkansas River.
The general structure of the state’s constitution (1907; still in force but frequently amended) is similar to those of other states, but Oklahomans strengthened the legislature by limiting the governor’s appointive powers and ability to serve consecutive terms—although the latter prohibition was removed in 1966—and by making the judiciary elective. Also unusual at the time was the constitutional provision of the citizens’ right to initiate legislation by popular initiative and referendum. The governor is elected for four years. In the bicameral state legislature, members of the Senate are elected for four-year terms and members of the House of Representatives for terms of two years. By constitutional provision, cities with populations of 2,000 or more can use a council-manager form of government.
A major governmental change was the revision of the state’s court system in 1967, which abolished justices of the peace and established selection of major judgeships according to what has become known as the Missouri Plan. Under this plan, judges are nominated by a joint commission chosen by the governor and the state bar association rather than by the political parties. The court system encompasses the Supreme Court, the Court of Civil Appeals, the Court of Criminal Appeals, and district courts. The Supreme Court has exclusive appellate jurisdiction in civil cases—which it may, at its discretion, assign to the Court of Civil Appeals—while the Court of Criminal Appeals has exclusive appellate jurisdiction in criminal cases. Judges are elected for a term of six years. The Court of Appeals, with a judge elected from each congressional district, hears only cases assigned to it by the Supreme Court, and there is no appeal from its decisions to other state courts. The district courts are the courts of original jurisdiction for all civil and criminal trials. A workers’ compensation court hears injury-compensation claims.
For much of the state’s early history, Oklahoma voters favoured the Democratic Party. Even when the state supported Republican presidential nominees, normally that party could hope for only one or two congressional seats, and it was not until 1962 that it won the governorship. Throughout the late 20th century, however, the Republican Party gathered strength. By the early 21st century the state was considered a Republican “safe” state in presidential elections, and most of its members of Congress were Republicans; in the 2008 presidential election, not a single Oklahoma county was delivered to the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. The governorship and other state and local offices are typically traded off between Democrats and Republicans. Oklahomans have a history of giving strong support to third parties; in 1914 the Socialists received 52,703 votes, and in 1968 the Southern states’ rights (American Independent Party) candidate, George C. Wallace, received more than 20 percent of the total vote.
Women are unusually well represented in Oklahoma politics, in all branches of government and at all levels. Minorities, notably Native Americans, are also prominent in state administration.
Supervision of public schools is conducted by elected state and county superintendents, and higher education is coordinated by the regents for higher education, appointed by the governor. Major schools within the state university system are the University of Oklahoma (founded 1890), in Norman, and Oklahoma State University (1890), in Stillwater. Both have a large number of graduate departments ranked above average in achievement. Also notable is the historically black Langston University, established by the territorial legislature in 1897. Private institutions enroll less than one-fifth of the college population; these include the University of Tulsa (1894; Presbyterian) and Oral Roberts University (1963; interdenominational Protestant), in Tulsa.
The state’s mental health department has general charge of more than a dozen mental health centres around the state and of psychiatric hospitals for adults and youths in Norman and Vinita. The Department of Human Services and the Department of Corrections administer social welfare and penal programs. In spite of a generally conservative attitude toward federal intervention in local social issues, most federal welfare programs operate in Oklahoma. The federal system was traditionally augmented by a network of state agencies and private groups, but a major reform in the 1990s generally reduced the extent of Oklahoma’s social services.
Oklahoma is a blend of the old and new. Native American dances and other cultural performances may be seen at the annual Red Earth Native American Cultural Festival (Oklahoma City) or at the American Indian Exposition (Anadarko). Anadarko is also the site of Indian City USA (an outdoor museum with authentic reconstructions of Native American dwellings and extensive displays of artifacts), the National Hall of Fame for Famous American Indians, and the Southern Plains Indian Museum. Western historical collections are maintained by the University of Oklahoma and by the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City. Two museums in the state celebrate a historic highway running from Chicago through Oklahoma to California: the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum, in Clinton, and the National Route 66 Museum, in Elk City. The National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center, at Oklahoma City, is noted for its Western art and its exhibits of cowboy paraphernalia. The Will Rogers Memorial Museum, in Claremore, features exhibits depicting early Oklahoma and Rogers’s career as a cowboy, humorist, and actor.
Oklahoma’s best-known visual artists are Native American, and their works as well as those of European masters are represented in many museums. Oil has made the state influential on the international petroleum landscape, but those that it has enriched have contributed much to the artistic scene. The Gilcrease Museum and the Philbrook Museum of Art, both in Tulsa, and the Woolaroc Museum, in Bartlesville, originally reflected individual tastes, but they have joined other art museums (notably the Oklahoma City Art Museum) in offering diverse displays.
Symphony orchestras are supported in Tulsa, Lawton, Enid-Phillips, and Norman. A public school music program culminates each spring in the Tri-State Music Festival. Several ballerinas of international fame are of Oklahoman Indian descent, the most noted of whom are Yvonne Chouteau, Rosella Hightower, and the sisters Maria and Marjorie Tallchief. Theatres have been sources of entertainment since frontier days. Universities and civic groups continue to provide a wide variety of dramatic experiences and professional training. Several towns feature annual folk plays or pageants, and Tulsa boasts an opera company with a regional reputation. The Tulsa Little Theater has given more than 50 years of uninterrupted productions. The state is unusually active in literature, with numerous writers’ clubs, poetry societies, and folklore groups. Among the state’s well-known writers are S.E. Hinton, author of several novels for youth that are set in the Tulsa of the 1950s; novelist and biographer Michael Wallis; and sports and young-adult fiction writer Harold Keith. Native American writers from Oklahoma include Linda Hogan, Joy Harjo, and N. Scott Momaday, who was named Oklahoma’s poet laureate in 2008.
Oklahoma also has an especially rich tradition in popular music that encompasses many genres. The long list of Oklahoma natives and residents who have found fame as musicians and singers includes seminal folksinger Woody Guthrie, jazzmen Charlie Christian and Chet Baker, pop vocalist Patti Page, actor Ben Johnson, “singing cowboy” (and actor) Gene Autry, and rock musicians Leon Russell, Dwight Twilley, and the Flaming Lips, not to mention a host of familiar names from the world of country music topped by Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, Roger Miller, Hank Thompson, Conway Twitty, Vince Gill, and Carrie Underwood.
Oklahoma offers a wide variety of recreational opportunities and actively seeks tourists from other states. The state has some 50 parks that range from mountainous to arid land. Among popular natural features are the Little Sahara Recreation Area and Great Salt Plains and Gloss Mountain state parks. Although often thought of as exclusively arid, because of its active program of water impoundment, Oklahoma has many canoe trails, fishing tournaments, and other opportunities for aquatic recreation as well as more shoreline than the Atlantic coast.
Baseball, gridiron football, wrestling, and basketball all loom large in the sports history of Oklahoma. Tulsa and Oklahoma City have had minor league baseball franchises since early in the 20th century, and the state has produced many outstanding baseball players, including Hall of Famers Mickey Mantle, Johnny Bench, and Carl Hubbell. Both the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University (members of the Big 12 Conference) have frequently sent their baseball teams to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) College World Series. The University of Oklahoma also has had one of college football’s most storied programs, having garnered seven NCAA championships. Oklahoma State cannot match the triumphs of its cross-state rival in football, but it boasts the most successful program in the history of collegiate wrestling as the winner of nearly three dozen NCAA championships (Oklahoma has also won many). Both universities also have strong basketball traditions; Oklahoma State’s reaches back to championship teams led by one of college basketball’s first great coaches, Hank Iba. Frequently overshadowed by the accomplishments of Oklahoma’s and Oklahoma State’s teams are those of the University of Tulsa (Conference USA), which has made its mark in football and basketball, and of Oral Roberts University (Summit League), which has excelled in basketball and baseball.
Professional sports have generally had a low profile in Oklahoma. However, after being displaced by Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA) played their home games in Oklahoma City for two seasons (beginning in 2005). In 2008 Oklahoma City got its own NBA franchise when the Seattle SuperSonics relocated there as the Thunder. Rodeo is also very popular in the state. It is perhaps fitting that Oklahoma’s most renowned athlete, Jim Thorpe, an Olympian and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, was a star not just in one sport but in several, including athletics (track and field), baseball, basketball, and lacrosse.
The state’s numerous daily newspapers include The Oklahoman (Oklahoma City) and Tulsa World. The Journal-Record, published in the capital, covers the state’s legal and business news. The Oklahoma Press Association has promoted the development of journalism and newspapers since 1906, before Oklahoma achieved statehood; its charitable branch, the Oklahoma Newspaper Foundation, gives workshops and provides scholarships to promising Oklahoma journalism students at colleges and universities in the state. The University of Oklahoma Press publishes scholarly works, specializing in the American West and Native Americans. There are also a number of small book publishers across the state.