Northwest Arkansas

Northwest Arkansas (NWA) is a metropolitan area and region in Arkansas within the Ozark Mountains. It includes four of the ten largest cities in the state: Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, and Bentonville, the surrounding towns of Benton and Washington counties, and adjacent rural Madison County, Arkansas. The United States Census Bureau-defined Fayetteville–Springdale–Rogers Metropolitan Statistical Area includes and 576,403 residents (as of 2022), ranking NWA as the 100th most-populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. and the 13th fastest growing in the United States. Northwest Arkansas doubled in population between 1990 and 2010. Growth has been driven by the three Fortune 500 companies based in NWA: Walmart, Tyson Foods, and J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. as well as over 1,300 suppliers and vendors drawn to the region by these large businesses and NWA's business climate. There are also several large private employers like Simmons Foods in Siloam Springs. The region has also seen significant investment in amenities, including the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Walmart AMP, and the NWA Razorback Regional Greenway. Etymology The term "Northwest Arkansas" is commonly used to refer to the rapidly growing cities of Benton and Washington counties in the geographic corner of the state. Northwest Arkansas, often abbreviated NWA, has become known as a cohesive region due to the efforts of the Northwest Arkansas Council, an association of community and business leaders formally organized in 1990 to promote regionalization and cooperation among area stakeholders. The first two chairs of the NWA Council were Alice Walton and John Paul Hammerschmidt. One of the first prominent uses of the region's name came on July 8, 1937 when the newspaper known as the Fayetteville Daily Democrat (The Democrat pre 1893) was renamed the Northwest Arkansas Times. Another major initiative using the region's name was the Northwest Arkansas National Airport (often referred to by its IATA airport code, XNA), which opened in 1998. Other regional priorities advocated for by the NWA Council include Interstate 49 (initially built at I-540), the Northwest Arkansas Community College (NWACC), the Northwest Arkansas Naturals minor-league baseball team, and the Northwest Arkansas Razorback Regional Greenway hard-surface trail.