Arkansas

Forklift Parts Arkansas - The US state of Arkansas is located within the southern area of the US. The name comes from the Quapaw Indians Algonquian name. The state of Arkansas shares its borders with six other states: the state of Missouri towards the north, Mississippi and Tennessee to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas in the southwest, Oklahoma to the west, and Mississippi River on a large part of the eastern border. Its diverse geography varies from the mountainous parts of the Ozarks and the Ouachita Mountains, which make up the U.S. Interior Highlands, to the eastern lowlands along the Mississippi River. The most densely inhabited and capital city is Little Rock, situated within the central region of the state of Arkansas.

In the year 2010, the gross domestic product for the state of Arkansas was $103 billion. During the year 2004, the per capita household median income was $35,295, based on the Census Bureau of the US. Agricultural production in Arkansas consists of poultry and eggs, soybeans, cattle, sorghum, cotton, rice, hogs, and milk. Its industrial outputs are electric equipments, food processing, fabricated metal products, machinery, bromine, vanadium and paper products.

As of August 2011, the state's unemployment rate is 8.3%.

The state of Arkansas is home to many international company head offices, including Wal-Mart, J.B. Hunt and Tyson Foods. This area of Arkansas has experienced an economic boom since the 1970s as a result.

During recent years, automobile components manufacturers have opened factories in eastern Arkansas to support auto plants in other states.

Tourism is also really important to the Arkansas economy; the official state nickname "The Natural State" was originally created for state tourism advertising in the 1970s, and is still regularly utilized to this day.

Forbes.com has ranked the state of Arkansas as the 21st best for The Best States for Business, 9th for Business Cost, 40th for Labor, 17th for Economic Climate, 22nd for Regulatory Environment, 34th in Gross Domestic Products, 9th for Growth Prospects, and positive economic change of 3.8% or ranked 22nd.

Arkansas ranks 3rd in the United States for catfish aquaculture, with over 19,200 acres (78 km2) producing catfish in 2010. The farming of catfish within Arkansas reached its peak during 2002, with 38,000 acres (150 km2) being farmed. With $71.5 million sales in the year 2007, the state's catfish producers generated 16 percent of the whole market in the United States. During the late 1950's, the state of Arkansas was the very first of the states to develop commercial catfish farms. The number of catfish farms within the state of Arkansas grew through the 1990s as farmers entered the catfish business as a way to provide extra income in a time of low prices for cotton and soybeans. Banks loaned money to support what they think as a stable source of revenue.