12 Things Out-of-Staters Always Get Wrong About Arkansas

Last year, Arkansas grew 45.2% of the rice produced in the U.S.

That surprises a lot of out-of-staters, and it’s not the only thing they get wrong about the state.

Here are the things out-of-staters often get wrong about Arkansas.

1. Diamond Digging

Arkansas has a state park where you search a 37-acre plowed field for diamonds, and any rock or mineral you find is yours to keep.

In 1924, a workman for the Arkansas Diamond Company found the Uncle Sam diamond at the crater.

It weighed 40.23 carats.

The Encyclopedia of Arkansas says it’s still the largest diamond ever found in the United States.

Visitors pay a small admission fee to search the field.

2. Hot Springs National Park

Hot Springs National Park sits in the middle of town.

Many out-of-staters picture a national park as a long drive into the wilderness.

In 1832, a federal law set aside the land around the springs.

The area didn’t become a national park until March 4, 1921.

It was the eighteenth.

Eight grand bathhouses went up on the same ground in the first three decades of the 1900s.

If you walk Bathhouse Row today, you’ll find nearly all of them renovated for modern use.

3. Ozark and Ouachita Mountains

Arkansas has six natural regions, and they include the Ozark Plateau and the Ouachita Mountains.

Mount Magazine in Logan County is the highest point in the state.

It reaches 2,753 feet.

If you picture one long stretch of flat farmland, you’re missing the mountains.

The flat Mississippi Alluvial Plain is just one of them.

4. Delta Flatlands

Arkansas’s Delta is the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, which covers most of eastern Arkansas.

Many out-of-staters hear “the Delta” and think only of Mississippi.

It’s flatter than any other region in the state.

It reaches into twenty-seven counties.

Silt several feet deep sits under the Delta, which was mostly bottomland hardwood forest and swamp long ago.

If you cross from the Ozarks into the Delta, you’re crossing into a different region of the state.

5. Name Pronunciation

The word Arkansas came from the Quapaw, by way of early French explorers.

Many out-of-staters read the name as Kansas with an Ar in front.

During the early days of statehood, Arkansas’s two U.S. senators were divided on how to say it, so one was introduced with the “saw” ending and the other with the “sas” ending.

Lawmakers picked “saw.”

If you say that last S, you’re pronouncing the name differently than lawmakers decided.

6. Official Nickname

The General Assembly made “the Natural State” Arkansas’s official nickname in 1995.

The parks system had started promoting it in the mid-1980s.

Before that, the official nickname was the “Land of Opportunity.”

Lawmakers adopted it in 1953.

That phrase first appeared on Arkansas license plates in 1941.

If you still call Arkansas the Land of Opportunity, you’re using the nickname the state exchanged for the Natural State.

7. Corporate Headquarters

Walmart's corporate headquarters is in Bentonville.

Sam Walton opened a Bentonville variety store, the origin of the retail giant.

That was 1950.

Many out-of-staters don't picture corporate headquarters when they picture the state.

Tyson Foods is headquartered in Springdale.

J.B. Hunt's corporate headquarters is in Lowell.

Tyson made the Fortune 500 list for the first time in 1982.

If you've shopped at Walmart, you've done business with a company that traces back to a Bentonville variety store.

8. Buffalo National River

Buffalo National River flows freely for 135 miles.

It was established in 1972.

The National Park Service describes it as one of the few undammed rivers left in the lower 48 states.

If you follow it for those 135 miles, you won't find a dam.

9. Rice Production

Arkansas grew 45.2% of the rice produced in the United States in 2025, according to the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.

The state also planted 45.7% of the country's rice acres that year.

If you've bought American-grown rice, you may have eaten rice grown in the state.

10. Cheese Dip

Many out-of-staters hear "cheese dip" and assume it's just another word for queso.

The Encyclopedia of Arkansas says research credits Blackie Donnely, who opened Mexico Chiquito in North Little Rock in 1935, with inventing cheese dip.

After a 2016 Wall Street Journal story, many Texas news outlets argued that chile con queso is of Texan origin.

Defenders of the state's claim pointed to a difference in consistency.

They also cited the larger role cheese dip plays in Arkansas culture than queso does in Texas.

The first World Cheese Dip Championship took place at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock.

That was 2010.

If you're in central Arkansas, you'll find Mexico Chiquito at multiple locations.

11. Razorback Mascot

The University of Arkansas describes razorbacks as wild hogs native to the state's wilderness.

University of Arkansas teams were the Cardinals until Coach Hugo Bezdek compared his players to wild razorback hogs after a 1909 win over Louisiana State University.

A year later, the student body voted to make Razorbacks the official mascot.

To call the Hogs, you raise your arms above your head, yell "Wooo" and wiggle your fingers for a few seconds.

Then you bring both arms straight down with fists clenched for "Pig" and extend your right arm for "Sooie."

You repeat those steps two more times.

Then you finish with "Razorbacks!"

12. Arkansas Post

Arkansas Post dates to 1686, when Henri de Tonti established a trading post known as "Poste de Arkansea."

The National Park Service describes it as the first semi-permanent French settlement in the lower Mississippi River Valley.

If you start Arkansas's story at statehood in 1836, you skip about a century and a half of history at the post.

By 1819, Arkansas Post was a river port, the largest city in the region and the first capital of the Arkansas Territory.