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Capital of Oklahoma · Oklahoma County · capital since 1910 · 35.5°N 97.5°W
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Oklahoma City was settled in a single afternoon in the Land Run of April 22, 1889, and took the state capital from Guthrie in 1910. It is the largest city in Oklahoma and the only state capital with working oil wells on the capitol grounds.
Where Oklahoma City is
Oklahoma City is the seat of Oklahoma County, with parts extending into Canadian, Cleveland and Pottawatomie counties, at 35.47°N, 97.52°W, almost at the geographic center of the state. The North Canadian River, renamed the Oklahoma River for the stretch through downtown, flows east through the south side of the city. The land is gently rolling plain about 1,200 ft above sea level, in the transition between the humid east and the drier Great Plains. The city limits cover about 620 square miles, one of the largest land areas of any US city. Interstates 35, 40 and 44 all pass through. Oklahoma City is on Central Time.
How it became the capital
The Unassigned Lands were opened to settlement by the Land Run of 1889, and a town of about 10,000 sprang up around the Santa Fe railway station in a day. Guthrie, 30 miles north, was made capital of Oklahoma Territory in 1890 and of the state in 1907, with the enabling act barring a move before 1913. Governor Charles Haskell called a referendum anyway in June 1910, Oklahoma City won, and the state seal was carried south from Guthrie overnight. Courts upheld the move.
Population
Oklahoma City had 681,054 residents in 2020, the largest city in Oklahoma and the 20th-largest in the country. Tulsa, the second, had about 413,000. The seven-county Oklahoma City metropolitan area has about 1.4 million people, a third of the state's 3,959,353.
The capitol
The Oklahoma State Capitol was designed by Solomon Layton and S. Wemyss Smith and completed in 1917. Money ran out before the planned dome could be built, and the building stood with a flat roof for 85 years until a dome was finally added in 2002, topped by a bronze statue of a Native American, The Guardian. The capitol sits on an oil field discovered in 1928, and pump jacks still operate on its grounds, though the well directly under the building, Petunia No. 1, was capped in 1986.
Distances to other cities
| City | Direction | Road distance |
|---|---|---|
| Tulsa, OK | northeast | about 105 mi |
| Dallas, TX | south | about 205 mi |
| Wichita, KS | north | about 160 mi |
Related maps
- Oklahoma map — the whole state with borders, cities and counties.
- Oklahoma City city map — the city page with nearby cities and distances.
- Oklahoma county map · blank Oklahoma map · printable Oklahoma map.
- All 50 state capitals on one map, and the state capitals quiz.
- South region · West South Central division · Central Time Zone.