18 interesting Oklahoma facts
- Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America.
- Capital: Oklahoma City
- With an estimated 3,687,050 residents in 2009 and a land area of 68,667 square miles (177,847 km²), Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state.
- Attendance at school is compulsory for children ages 5 to 18 in Oklahoma, the longest education commitment of any state in the nation.
- Oklahoma was the 46th state to enter the union. Its residents are known as Oklahomans, and its capital and largest city is Oklahoma City.
- Oklahoma was among the states hardest hit by the Great Depression and the drought that created the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.
- Oklahoma nickname is The Sooner State.
- The name "Oklahoma" comes from the Choctaw words: "okla" meaning people and "humma" meaning red, so the state's name literally means "red people."
- Oklahoma City and Tulsa serve as Oklahoma's primary economic anchors, with nearly 60 percent of Oklahomans living in their metropolitan statistical areas.
- Oklahoma was mostly Indian Territory until the late 1800s.
- 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.
- Oklahoma doesn't have Indian Reservations. The State does however, have 39 federally-recognized tribal nations headquarters in the state, and rank second to California as the state with the largest Native American population.
- 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.
- Oklahoma's Cimarron county is bordered by more states than any other U.S. county: Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas.
- Oklahoma is the third largest gas-producing state in the nation.
- Oklahoma's state capitol building is the only capitol in the world with an oil well under it. Although its legal description is Capitol Site #1, it is referred to as Petunia #1 because it was originally drilled in the middle of a flower bed.
- The aerosol can was invented in Bartlesville; the parking meter in Oklahoma; and the shopping cart in Ardmore.
- Oklahoma has more man-made lakes than any other state, with over one million surface acres of water and 2,000 more miles of shoreline than the Atlantic and Gulf coasts combined.
