Little Rock, Arkansas

Little Rock is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The population was 202,591 at the 2020 census, while the Little Rock metropolitan area with an estimated 770,000 residents is the 81st-most populous metropolitan area in the United States. The city lies on the south bank of the Arkansas River close to the state's geographic center in central Arkansas. It is the county seat of Pulaski County.

Little Rock was founded in 1821 as the capital of the Arkansas Territory. It is named for a rock formation along the Arkansas River named the "Little Rock" by the French explorer Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe in 1722. The city played a notable role in U.S. history during the 1957 desegregation of Little Rock Central High School, a key event in the Civil Rights movement. Little Rock is a cultural, economic, government, and transportation center within Arkansas and the American South.

Economically, Little Rock is supported by a mix of sectors including healthcare, banking, transportation, and retail. Companies such as Dillard's and Windstream Holdings are headquartered in the city, and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences contributes to its healthcare industry and academic research. Its cultural sites include the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, Clinton Presidential Center, and Quapaw Quarter. Outdoor spaces such as the Arkansas River Trail and Pinnacle Mountain State Park provide recreational opportunities within and near the city.

Little Rock was named for a stone outcropping on the bank of the Arkansas River used by early travelers as a landmark, which marked the transition from the flat Mississippi Delta region to the Ouachita Mountain foothills. It was named in 1722 by French explorer and trader, Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe. Travelers referred to the area as the "Little Rock". Though there was an effort to officially name the city "Arkopolis" upon its founding in the 1820s, and that name did appear on a few maps made by the US Geological Survey, the name Little Rock is eventually what stuck.

The territorial capitol had been located at Arkansas Post in Southeast Arkansas since 1819, but the site had proven unsuitable as a settlement due to frequent flooding of the Arkansas River. Over the years, the "little rock" was known as a waypoint along the river, but remained unsettled. A land speculator from St. Louis, Missouri who had acquired many acres around the "little rock" began pressuring the Arkansas territorial legislature in February 1820 to move the capital to the site, but the representatives could not decide between Little Rock or Cadron (now Conway), which was the preferred site of Territorial Governor James Miller. The issue was tabled until October 1820, by which time most of the legislators and other influential men had purchased lots around Little Rock. The legislature moved the capital to Little Rock, where it has remained ever since.

Little Rock Nine were the nine African American students who desegregated Little Rock Central High School in 1957 after the Little Rock School Board voted to begin the area's desegregation, in compliance with Brown v. Board of Education. On September 4, 1957, the first day of school at Central High, a white mob of segregationist protesters physically blocked the nine black students from entering the school. Minnijean Brown, Terrence Roberts, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Patillo, Gloria Ray, Jefferson Thomas, and Carlotta Walls, who had been recruited by Daisy Bates and the NAACP, attempted to integrate Central High School, but Governor Orval Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to support the segregationists, and only backed down after Judge Ronald Davies of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas granted an injunction from the U.S. Department of Justice compelling him to withdraw the Guard. Angry white mobs began rioting when the nine black students began attending Central High School. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, on the request of Woodrow Wilson Mann, Little Rock's mayor, deployed the 101st Airborne Division to the city and federalized the Arkansas National Guard to protect the students and ensure their safe passage to the school. Little Rock's four public high schools were closed in September 1958, and reopened a year later. Integration across all grades was fully achieved in fall 1972. The Little Rock school episode drew international attention to the treatment of African Americans in the United States.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 116.8 square miles (303 km²), of which 116.2 square miles (301 km²) is land and 0.6 square miles (1.6 km²) (0.52%) is water.

Little Rock is on the south bank of the Arkansas River in Central Arkansas. Fourche Creek and Rock Creek run through the city, and flow into the river. The western part of the city is in the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains. Northwest of the city limits are Pinnacle Mountain and Lake Maumelle, which provides Little Rock's drinking water.