Ark-La-Tex

Ark-La-Tex
Region
Downtown Shreveport, Louisiana, in 2015
Downtown Longview, Texas, in 2008
Broad Street in Texarkana, Arkansas, in 2016
Country	United States
State	Arkansas Louisiana Oklahoma Texas
Principal cities	Shreveport Bossier City Longview Texarkana Nacogdoches Marshall Ruston El Dorado Natchitoches Idabel
Population  (2018)
• Total	1,498,647
Time zone	UTC−6 (CST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−5 (CDT)
Area codes	318, 430 and 903, 870, 580

The Ark-La-Tex (a portmanteau of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas; also stylized as Arklatex or ArkLaTex) is a socio-economic tri-state region where the Southern U.S. states of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas join together.^[1] The region contains portions of Northwest Louisiana, Northeast Texas, and South Arkansas as well as the extreme southeastern tip of Oklahoma, in McCurtain County (part of Choctaw Country), partly centered upon the Red River,^[1] which flows along the Texas–Oklahoma state line into Southwestern Arkansas and Northwest Louisiana.

The population estimate of the 40-county core region as of 2018 is 1,498,647 people, up from 1,043,570 in 2010.^[a] Shreveport, Louisiana, with approximately 189,149 people in 2018, is the largest city, economic and geographic center of the region, and principal hub for both the Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area and Northwestern Louisiana. Longview, Texas, with an approximate population of 81,647 people in 2018, is the second-largest city as well as a principal city of the Tyler–Longview metropolitan conurbation and Greater Longview metropolitan area.^[2][3] The twin cities of Texarkana, Texas, and Texarkana, Arkansas, are the fourth- and sixth-largest cities, respectively, but collectively make up the region's third-largest metropolitan area (with a combined population exceeding 150,000 residents) as the center of the Texarkana metropolitan area encompassing Miller County, Arkansas, and Bowie County, Texas. Other cities in the Ark-La-Tex with 20,000 or more residents include Bossier City, Louisiana; Nacogdoches, Texas; Marshall, Texas; and Ruston, Louisiana.

The counties in the area's western section are largely part of the East Texas region (except for McCurtain County, Oklahoma, which is part of the Choctaw Country tourist region) and mainly encompass the Tyler–Longview–Lufkin–Nacogdoches television market area, while the counties and parishes in the eastern half of the region are included in the Shreveport–Texarkana television market. However, some Arkansas counties—under certain, looser definitions of the Ark-La-Tex region—in northwesternmost areas of the southwestern section of the state are included in the Little Rock viewing area.

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