Green Country, sometimes referred to as Northeast Oklahoma, is the northeastern portion of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

of Oklahoma, which lies west of the northern half of

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

, the southwestern corner the way of

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

, and south of

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...

Alternate definitions

While the name's usage can be traced to the early part of the 20th century, it was popularized in the 1960s by the

Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation The Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation is a department of the government of Oklahoma within the Tourism and Branding Cabinet. The Department is responsible for regulating Oklahoma's tourism industry and for promoting Oklahoma as a to ...

as one of six travel destination regions within the state. Said tourism designation is an 18-county region including

Pawnee Pawnee initially refers to a Native American people and its language: * Pawnee people * Pawnee language Pawnee is also the name of several places in the United States: * Pawnee, Illinois * Pawnee, Kansas * Pawnee, Missouri * Pawnee City, Nebraska ...

, Osage,

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

Nowata Nowata ( Lenape: ', ' ) is a city and county seat of Nowata County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 3,731 at the United States Census, 2010, a 6.0 percent decline from the figure of 3,971 recorded in 2000. The area where it was estab ...

, Craig, Ottawa,

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

, Mayes,

Rogers Rogers may refer to: Places Canada *Rogers Pass (British Columbia) * Rogers Island (Nunavut) United States * Rogers, Arkansas, a city * Rogers, alternate name of Muroc, California, a former settlement * Rogers, Indiana, an unincorporated communit ...

, Creek,

Tulsa Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

, Wagoner,

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...

, Adair, Sequoyah, Muskogee, Okmulgee, and

McIntosh McIntosh, Macintosh, or Mackintosh (Gaelic: ') may refer to: Products and brands * Mackintosh, a form of waterproof raincoat * Mackintosh's or John Mackintosh and Co., later Rowntree Mackintosh, former UK confectionery company now part of Nestl� ...

counties. Another alternate usage of the term can include solely the immediate vicinity of Green Country's principal city,

; the Tulsa Metropolitan Area or the city of Tulsa proper is often referred to as "Green Country" in its own right. In this case, the terms "Tulsa Metropolitan Area" and "Green Country" are used interchangeably. Average precipitation totals in Green Country are generally above 40 inches per year. The area is also one of the most populous regions of Oklahoma, and is home to some of its largest cities.

Geography

Northeastern Oklahoma has the state's second largest city, Tulsa. In addition to the area's foliage and rolling hills, it has more lakes than any other geographical area of Oklahoma, as well as more than half of the state's registered state parks.
klahoma Department of Tourism/ref> Oklahoma is one of only four states with more than 10 ecoregions, but six of its 11 ecoregions are located in northeastern Oklahoma. The heavily wooded

Ozark Mountains The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the extreme southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cover a significant port ...

and their foothills dominate most of northeast Oklahoma from the immediate Tulsa vicinity south and eastward towards the Arkansas state line, containing both

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, whic ...

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accepts ...

and

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, ...

forests. In its western counties, the far eastern extent of the Great Plains transition to woodlands through the

Cross Timbers The term Cross Timbers, also known as Ecoregion 29, Central Oklahoma/Texas Plains, is used to describe a strip of land in the United States that runs from southeastern Kansas across Central Oklahoma to Central Texas. Made up of a mix of prairie ...

region. This area includes most of Oklahoma's portion of the

Flint Hills The Flint Hills, historically known as Bluestem Pastures or Blue Stem Hills, are a region in eastern Kansas and north-central Oklahoma named for the abundant residual flint eroded from the bedrock that lies near or at the surface. It consists of ...

, some of which is the protected by the

Tallgrass Prairie Preserve The Joseph H. Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, in Osage County, Oklahoma near Foraker, Oklahoma, is the largest protected tract of tallgrass prairie in the world. Managed by The Nature Conservancy, the preserve contains owned by the Conserv ...

near

Pawhuska Pawhuska ( osa, 𐓄𐓘𐓢𐓶𐓮𐓤𐓘 / hpahúska, ''meaning: "White Hair"'', iow, Paháhga) is a city in and the county seat of Osage County, Oklahoma, United States. It was named after the 19th-century Osage chief, ''Paw-Hiu-Skah'', ...

, one of the last remnants of

tallgrass prairie The tallgrass prairie is an ecosystem native to central North America. Historically, natural and anthropogenic fire, as well as grazing by large mammals (primarily bison) provided periodic disturbances to these ecosystems, limiting the encroachm ...

in the United States. Prairie terrain is most apparent in a strip of Green Country's northern section, which borders

, running roughly from Bartlesville to

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

, where the landscape is a mix of true prairie and forest. A small portion of the

Ouachita Mountains The Ouachita Mountains (), simply referred to as the Ouachitas, are a mountain range in western Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma. They are formed by a thick succession of highly deformed Paleozoic strata constituting the Ouachita Fold and Thru ...

extend into the southern areas of northeast Oklahoma, though the Ozark highlands are the primary range in the area. Northeast Oklahoma has a land area of , comprising 18 entire counties. The region comprises about 19.3 percent of Oklahoma's land area, and is larger than the state of

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

Political geography

Based on commuting patterns, the adjacent micropolitan area of Bartlesville, is grouped together in the (CSA). The population of this wider region is 998,438—more than one-fourth of Oklahoma's population—as of 2012. The 2010 census population of Green Country was 1,301,716 inhabitants, about 30 percent of whom were concentrated in the city of

Counties of the Green Country region (per Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation)

* Adair County * Craig County * Creek County *

Cherokee County Cherokee County is the name of eight counties in the United States: * Cherokee County, Alabama * Cherokee County, Georgia * Cherokee County, Iowa * Cherokee County, Kansas * Cherokee County, North Carolina * Cherokee County, Oklahoma * Cherokee Co ...

* Delaware County * Mayes County * McIntosh County * Muskogee County * Nowata County * Okmulgee County * Osage County * Ottawa County * Pawnee County *

Rogers County Rogers County is located in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2020 census, the population was 95,240, making it the sixth-most populous county in Oklahoma. The county seat is Claremore. Rogers County is included i ...

* Sequoyah County * Tulsa County * Wagoner County * Washington County It includes the Deep Fork National Wildlife Refuge, Ozark Plateau National Wildlife Refuge,

Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United Stat ...

Canadian River The Canadian River is the longest tributary of the Arkansas River in the United States. It is about long, starting in Colorado and traveling through New Mexico, the Texas Panhandle, and Oklahoma. The drainage area is about .Grand River, Illinois River, and

Verdigris River The Verdigris River is a tributary of the Arkansas River in southeastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma in the United States. It is about long.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, ...

Infrastructure

The

Tulsa International Airport Tulsa International Airport is a civil-military airport five miles (8 km) northeast of downtown Tulsa, in Tulsa County, Oklahoma, United States. It was named Tulsa Municipal Airport when the city acquired it in 1929;Tulsa Port of Catoosa The primary facility of the Tulsa Ports, known as the Tulsa Port of Catoosa, is near the city of Catoosa in Rogers County, just inside the municipal fenceline of Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States. Located at the head of navigation for the McClell ...

and Port of Muskogee are Oklahoma's only seaports, connecting the state directly with international trade routes. From either of these two ports, goods may be transported via the Arkansas River's connection to the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...

. The area's highway system is dominated by turnpikes. Toll roads account for the primary highways in and out of the city of Tulsa in almost every direction. The

Will Rogers Turnpike The Will Rogers Turnpike is a freeway-standard toll road in the northeast portion of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The highway begins as a continuation of the Creek Turnpike in Tulsa, continuing northward from the I-44/ US-412 interchange there ...

serves the city to the northeast, the

Turner Turnpike The Turner Turnpike is a toll road in central Oklahoma, connecting its two largest cities, Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Authorized by the Oklahoma Legislature in 1947 and opened in May 1953, it is the oldest of the state's eleven turnpikes.Everett, ...

to the southwest, the

Cimarron Turnpike The Cimarron Turnpike is a toll road in north-central Oklahoma. The route travels , from an interchange with Interstate 35 (I-35) north of Perry, to Westport, just west of Tulsa. The route also consists of a spur which runs from the mai ...

to the west, The Muskogee Turnpike to the southeast, and the

Cherokee Turnpike The Cherokee Turnpike is a toll road in eastern Oklahoma. Opened in 1991, the route is a four-lane tollway carrying US-412 from east of Kansas, Oklahoma to east of Chouteau, and has a total length of and a speed limit of . An alternate rout ...

to the east.

Interstate 44 Interstate 44 (I-44) is a major Interstate Highway in the central United States. Although it is nominally an east–west road as it is even-numbered, it follows a more southwest–northeast alignment. Its western terminus is in Wichita Fal ...

is the primary thoroughfare, and runs diagonally through Green Country, exiting on the southwest and northeast corners. All portions of the road through northeastern Oklahoma exists as a toll road, except for in the city of

. Interstate 40 straddles the southernmost border of Green Country, while other highways include the north-south Highway 75 (not a turnpike), The Muskogee Turnpike, the north-south Highway 69, Highway 169, and the east-west Highway 412. In addition, Historic

U.S. Route 66 U.S. Route 66 or U.S. Highway 66 (US 66 or Route 66) was one of the original highways in the United States Numbered Highway System. It was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year. The h ...

runs (with breaks) between the Kansas line and Stroud, the southwesternmost town in the region.

Cities and towns

* Owasso * Broken Arrow * Bartlesville * Jenks * Bixby * Skiatook *

Claremore Claremore is a city and the county seat of Rogers County in Green Country or northeastern Oklahoma, United States. The population was 19,580 at the 2020 census, a 5.4 percent increase over the figure of 18,581 recorded in 2010.Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

* Okmulgee * Muskogee *

* Tahlequah * Vinita * Pryor * Oologah * Sapulpa * Sand Springs * Stilwell *

* Wagoner

References

External links

Green Country Marketing AssociationGreen Country North Eastern Oklahoma Business and Events Showcase - Features 48,000 Businesses and Hundreds of Local Events Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory
{{Coord, 36.5, N, 95.5, W, format=dec, display=title, type:adm1st_region:US-OK Official tourism regions in Oklahoma Regions of the Southern United States Regions of Oklahoma Ozarks Ouachita Mountains