47,000 Square Miles of Mountains and Forests
While Springfield, Missouri and Northwest Arkansas are the two primary metropolitan areas of the Ozarks, there are many other places which could be included or are near the edge of the region. Fort Smith, Arkansas is considered part of the “River Valley” region of Arkansas but sits right against the Boston Mountains of the Ozarks. Tulsa, Oklahoma is just west of the small portion of the Oklahoma Ozarks, and St Louis, Missouri is just east of the northeastern most region. Additionally, Joplin, Columbia, and Jefferson City, Missouri are all within the Ozarks region, though they are much smaller in size compared to Springfield or NWA. In total around 1 million people live in this region, though with Tulsa, Kansas City, St Louis, and Little Rock all right on the fringes the number in the surrounding region to around 7-8 million.
Northwest Arkansas
More than the sum of it’s parts
Long a sleepy backwoods region, Northwest Arkansas is being quickly propelled into not only the largest metro in the Ozarks, but soon to be the largest in the state of Arkansas. By 2050 it may even rival the Tulsa metropolitan area in population. This growth has been driven in large part due to the presence and success of 3 Fortune 500 companies, Tyson Foods, J.B. Hunt, and Wal-Mart.
The region primarily consists of 4 major towns, Fayetteville and Springdale in Washington County, and Bentonville and Rogers in Benton County. Other towns are also quickly growing in size however, with Siloam Springs, Centerton, Bella Vista, and Lowell all closing in or already exceeding 20,000 residents.
To put into perspective the rapid and sustained growth, Northwest Arkansas has gained over 100,000 residents between each census since 1990. This is around double the numbers of out of state rival Springfield, and exceeds both Little Rock and Tulsa by a fair margin.
Springfield, Missouri
Queen City of the Ozarks
For a long time Springfield was the dominant city in the Ozarks. In recent years it has lost that dominance as Northwest Arkansas has overtaken it in terms of wealth and population, but it has still grown at a relatively fast pace. Growth has died off in the last decade, but the region still netted a growth of nearly 40,000 people between the 2010 and 2020 census. It is home to Bass Pro Shops as well as Missouri State University and several other private schools including Evangel University and Drury University. Despite this, it has never really been a “college town” and the city could be best described as “a really big town” that never quite became a city.
Tourism is quite important to the region as it is both a gateway to Branson, Missouri as well as Lake of the Ozarks and Table Rock Lake. Situated on I-44 it is also an important logistical hub for traffic crossing from Texas to Chicago or from Southern California to the Northeastern United States.
Urban Ozarks 