State guide

Arkansas Nature Guide

Arkansas, the Natural State, packs an outsized share of American landscapes into its borders — the ancient, oak-hickory Ozark Highlands and the rugged Ouachita Mountains in the west, and the flat, fertile Mississippi Alluvial Plain, the Delta, in the east. That Delta is one of the continent's great wintering grounds for ducks and geese, centered on Stuttgart, the self-styled Rice and Duck Capital of the World, while the spring-fed Ozark hollows hold trillium, wild azalea, and some of the finest hardwood spring color in the South. From Mount Magazine, the state high point, to the swamp forests of the Cache River and the Big Woods, the nature calendar runs full and varied across a humid subtropical year.