Choctaw Country

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Choctaw Country" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Choctaw Country is the Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation's official tourism designation for Southeast Oklahoma.^[1] The name was previously Kiamichi Country until changed in honor of the Choctaw Nation headquartered there. The current definition of Choctaw Country includes ten counties, being Coal, Atoka, Bryan, Choctaw, McCurtain, Pushmataha, Le Flore, Latimer, Haskell, and Pittsburg counties.^[1] The department created the term as one of six designated travel regions within the state.^[1] However, other definitions of Southeastern Oklahoma may include additional counties.

The original name of Kiamichi was applied by French explorers who came to the area in the early 18th century. They discovered, among other things, a very large, noisy woodpecker that they called Kiamichi, their word for "raucous bird."^[2] This name was also applied to the Kiamichi Mountains (Choctaw: Nʋnih Chaha Kiamitia), a subset of the Ouachita Mountains.

Due to an influx of southerners seeking less expensive frontier lands during the post-Civil War Reconstruction era, Choctaw Country developed a culture that is more southern than the rest of the state. This region has also been called "Little Dixie".

Lightly populated, heavily mountainous and forested, the region is popular for outdoor recreation. It supports water sports, mountain biking, hiking, hunting, horse back riding, fishing, and national scenic drives. The area of jurisdiction of the Choctaw Nation covers much of this territory.