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Oklahoma
The Sooner State, where South and West overlap
Oklahoma is a transition state, the place where the wooded, humid South gives way to the dry, open West. Its eastern edge is green and hilly — the Ozark and Ouachita highlands, forests, and lakes — while the west flattens and dries into the southern Great Plains, ending in the long, arid finger of the Panhandle reaching toward New Mexico. Rainfall drops steadily from the soggy southeast to the near-desert northwest, so the state holds nearly every Plains climate in one outline.
This is the southern heart of Tornado Alley, where moist Gulf air collides with dry continental air to spawn some of the most violent storms on Earth. Black Mesa, the high point at 4,973 feet (1,516 m), stands at the tip of the Panhandle, a volcanic tableland far from the rest of the state. Oklahoma also holds the largest Native American population of any state, the legacy of removals that made it Indian Territory. Oklahoma City and Tulsa anchor a state built on oil, agriculture, and the meeting of regions.
Economy
Oklahoma's economy has long been built on oil and natural gas, and energy remains its core, now joined by a fast-growing wind-power sector. Agriculture - cattle and wheat above all - aviation and aerospace around Tinker Air Force Base and Tulsa, and a major Native American economic presence round out the state.
Politics
Oklahoma carries 7 electoral votes and is one of the most reliably Republican states in the country - in several recent elections it voted Republican in every one of its 77 counties.