About 47,000 sq mi · MO, AR, OK (and a corner of KS) · highest about 2,560 ft in the Boston Mountains
Ozark Mountains map
The Ozarks are a dissected plateau of about 47,000 square miles covering southern Missouri, northern Arkansas and the northeastern corner of Oklahoma, the largest highland between the Appalachians and the Rockies.
Where the Ozarks are
The Ozarks fill the southern half of Missouri below the Missouri River, the northern third of Arkansas north of the Arkansas River valley, and the northeastern corner of Oklahoma east of Tulsa. A few square miles cross into southeastern Kansas. The region is a plateau that rivers have cut into hills, rather than a folded range, so the "mountains" are really the tops of the old surface; the highest ground is in the Boston Mountains of Arkansas at about 2,560 ft. Together with the Ouachita Mountains to the south, across the Arkansas valley, they form the US Interior Highlands.
Sub-regions
- Boston Mountains — the southern rim in Arkansas, the highest and steepest part; the Buffalo National River runs through them.
- Springfield Plateau — the western Ozarks around Springfield, Missouri, and northwest Arkansas, the region's most populated part.
- Salem Plateau — the eastern and central Ozarks of Missouri, with the spring-fed Current, Jacks Fork and Eleven Point rivers.
- St. Francois Mountains — an ancient granite core in southeastern Missouri; Taum Sauk Mountain, 1,772 ft, is the state's high point.
Key measurements
- Area: about 47,000 square miles.
- Highest point: about 2,560 ft, in the Boston Mountains near Buffalo Lookout, Arkansas. Mount Magazine (2,753 ft), the Arkansas high point, is in the Ouachitas, not the Ozarks.
- Big Spring, Missouri, is one of the largest single springs in the country, flowing about 280 million gallons a day.
- Reservoirs: Lake of the Ozarks (1931, about 1,150 miles of shoreline), Table Rock, Bull Shoals, Beaver, Norfork and Greers Ferry, all on the White and Osage river systems.
- Rivers: the White, Osage, Gasconade, Meramec, Black, Current and Illinois, all draining to the Mississippi or Arkansas.
Cities in the Ozarks
Springfield, Missouri, is the largest city on the plateau. Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers and Bentonville form northwest Arkansas's fast-growing corridor. Branson, Missouri, and Eureka Springs, Arkansas, are the tourist towns; Joplin, Missouri, sits on the western edge, and Tahlequah, Oklahoma, is the capital of the Cherokee Nation. Kansas City and St. Louis lie just north of the region, Little Rock just south.
How the region shaped the map
The Ozarks were bypassed by the great rivers of settlement: the Missouri runs north of them, the Arkansas south. Missouri's southern border on the 36°30′ parallel (the Missouri Compromise line of 1820) and the notch of the Bootheel were drawn across the plateau without regard to it. The 1838–1839 Trail of Tears crossed the Ozarks on its way to Indian Territory, and the Cherokee, Osage and other nations were settled on the Oklahoma side of the hills. The region kept an isolated, Appalachian-style culture into the 20th century; the dams of the 1930s–1960s turned its valleys into lakes and its towns into resorts.
Related maps
- Arkansas River — the valley that separates the Ozarks from the Ouachitas.
- US mountain ranges · Highest point in each state.
- Missouri map · Arkansas map · All geography maps.