Little Rock, Arkansas

Where Little Rock is

Little Rock is the seat of Pulaski County, at 34.75°N, 92.29°W, close to the center of Arkansas. The city takes its name from a small rock outcrop on the south bank of the Arkansas River that French explorers used as a landmark in 1722. The site marks a geographic boundary: to the west the Ouachita Mountains and the Arkansas River valley, to the east the flat Mississippi delta. North Little Rock is a separate city on the opposite bank. Interstates 30 and 40 meet here, connecting the city to Dallas, Memphis and Fort Smith.

How it became the capital

Arkansas Territory was created in 1819 with its capital at Arkansas Post, an old French settlement near the mouth of the Arkansas River that flooded regularly. The territorial legislature moved to Little Rock in 1821, and it stayed the capital when Arkansas became the 25th state in 1836. It has never moved since, though the state government spent the last year of the Civil War at Washington, in Hempstead County, after Union forces took Little Rock in 1863.

Population

With 202,591 residents in 2020, Little Rock is the largest city in Arkansas; Fort Smith, the second, has under 90,000. The six-county Little Rock–North Little Rock–Conway metropolitan area has about 750,000 people, about a quarter of the state total of 3,011,524.

The capitol

Arkansas has two capitols. The Old State House on Markham Street, finished in 1836, is the oldest surviving state capitol west of the Mississippi and is now a museum; Bill Clinton gave his election-night speeches there in 1992 and 1996. The present Arkansas State Capitol on Woodlane Street took from 1899 to 1915 to build. George R. Mann drew the original design and Cass Gilbert, architect of the Minnesota and West Virginia capitols, finished it. The building is limestone with a dome patterned after the US Capitol and is frequently used as a stand-in for it in films.

Distances to other cities

Little Rock is on Central Time. The Arkansas River is navigable from here to the Mississippi through the McClellan–Kerr lock system.

Related maps

• Arkansas map — the whole state with borders, cities and counties.
• Arkansas county map · blank Arkansas map · printable Arkansas map.
• All 50 state capitals on one map, and the state capitals quiz.
• South region · West South Central division · Central Time Zone.