479 Area Code 🌍☎️

Fort Smith is Arkansas's third-largest city and one of two county seats of Sebastian County, with a 2020 population of 89,142 serving as the principal city of a five-county metropolitan area of 298,592 residents. Located on the Arkansas-Oklahoma border at the confluence of the Arkansas and Poteau rivers at Belle Point, Fort Smith was established in November 1817 as a U.S. Army military post named after General Thomas Adams Smith to maintain peace between the Osage and Cherokee peoples. The city became a strategic hub for westward expansion and law enforcement in Indian Territory, serving as a military and supply center during the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and an outfitting point for California Gold Rush migrants, with one of the earliest wagon trains to California departing in 1849. Fort Smith is known for its prominent role in enforcing Indian Removal policies during the 1830s, including the forced relocation of Southeastern tribes such as the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears, and for its law enforcement heritage as the center of white law enforcement operations in adjacent Indian Territory. The city, governed since 2018 by Mayor George McGill, the first African American mayor in Fort Smith's history, is strategically situated between the Ozarks and Ouachita Mountains in the Arkansas Valley. Fayetteville, Arkansas, the county seat of Washington County in Northwest Arkansas, had a population of 93,949 at the 2020 census and an estimated 106,623 in 2025, making it the second-most populous city in Arkansas and the most populous in the Northwest Arkansas metropolitan area of 546,725 residents. Named after Fayetteville, Tennessee by settlers from that state and incorporated on November 3, 1836, the city was established following the Louisiana Purchase when George McGarrah and his sons settled near Big Spring around 1828 in what is now the Masonic Addition at the base of Mount Sequoyah. Fayetteville is home to the University of Arkansas, the state's flagship university, which brings thousands of students and alumni to the city for academic sessions and Arkansas Razorbacks athletic events including football, basketball, and baseball. Located on the outskirts of the Boston Mountains within the Ozarks, the city developed as a regional political and educational center after Arkansas statehood in 1836, with the Fayetteville Female Academy becoming the second school chartered in Arkansas that same year. The city obtained its official city charter from the Arkansas legislature in 1859, with J. W. Walker serving as the first mayor under this charter. Bentonville is the county seat of Benton County in northwest Arkansas and the ninth-most populous city in the state with 54,164 residents according to the 2020 census, serving as one of four main cities in the three-county Northwest Arkansas metropolitan area with 546,725 people. The city is home to Sam Walton's original 1951 Walton's 5 and 10 Variety Store and Walmart's global headquarters on a 350-acre campus, making it the epicenter of the world's largest retailer. Originally named Osage when European settlers arrived around 1837, the town was renamed Bentonville in 1838 to honor Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton and established as the county seat following Benton County's creation in September 1836. Though spared direct Civil War combat, the city was occupied by both armies and nearly destroyed by fire, rebuilding in the Reconstruction Era before establishing itself as the nation's leading apple-producing county by 1901 and becoming known for poultry production from the 1920s onward. Today Bentonville is one of Arkansas's fastest-growing cities, with economic roots tracing back to its 1883 railroad connection to nearby Rogers that enabled the development of its thriving agricultural and retail heritage.