Berita Hari Ini: The Arkansas border that doesn't make sense


	March 12, 2026

Original photo by © Craig Taylor Photo/stock.adobe.com

You can travel south from Arkansas to reach every state it borders.

The border between Arkansas and its six neighboring states is quite the geographical oddity. Arkansas shares its approximately 170-mile-long southern border with Louisiana. But you can also travel south from various points in Arkansas and wind up in Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, Texas, or Oklahoma.

One of Arkansas' longest borders is with Missouri, a state largely located to the north. But there's a region of Missouri at the eastern end of that border, called the Missouri Bootheel, that dips south into what was once Arkansas Territory. The Missouri-Arkansas boundary was originally meant to be a straight line, but the Bootheel was created when some settlers in the Arkansas Territory successfully petitioned for their land to be included in Missouri. As a result, you can technically travel south from the northeasternmost part of Arkansas into its neighbor to the north.

Meanwhile, Arkansas shares its eastern border with Tennessee and Mississippi along the Mississippi River. As the river flows south, it angles west, creating a situation where parts of Arkansas are located north of its two eastern neighbors. And the Arkansas-Oklahoma border to the west is angled in such a way that if you're located in the northwestern part of Arkansas, you can travel due south to end up in Oklahoma.

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		Numbers Don't Lie

State parks in Arkansas

Height (in feet) of Mount Magazine, Arkansas' highest point

2,753

Year Arkansas' Hot Springs National Park was established

1921

Meteorites that have been discovered in Arkansas

There's a state law regarding the official pronunciation of "Arkansas."

In 1881, the Arkansas General Assembly ended a long-standing debate over the spelling and pronunciation of the state's name. A formal resolution decreed "Arkansas" to be the official spelling and "Ar-kan-saw" (written phonetically as /ˈɑrkənˌsɔ/) the official pronunciation. The law's exact wording states that the name "should be pronounced in three (3) syllables, with the final 's' silent, the 'a' in each syllable with the Italian sound, and the accent on the first and last syllable." In this context, the "Italian sound" suggests an open pronunciation of the vowel /a/, similar to the sound in the words "father" and "pasta."

Today's edition of Interesting Facts was written by Bennett Kleinman and edited by Brooke Robinson.