Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 is the second largest US state with an area of 261797 square miles (678,051.1 km²) and a population of 23.5 million in 254 counties. This covers an area 773 miles (1,244 km) wide by 790 miles (1,271.4 km) long. Due to its location and size, it is a part of a large number of unique geological regions. From the piney woods of East Texas, plains in the Panhandle, mountains in far West Texas, and many hundreds of miles of coastline.

There are several different methods used to divide the geographic and geological differences within the state, and there are often subdivisions within a region that more accurately describe both the terrain and culture. Because there is no single standard for subdividing the regions of Texas, many accepted areas either overlap or seem to contradict others. All are included for completeness as this information is not grouped anywhere else.

Specific regions

These are generally accepted regions; however, many overlap each other.

• Big Bend
  Big Bend (Texas)
  The Big Bend is a colloquial name of a geographic region in the western part of the state of Texas in the United States along the border with Mexico, roughly defined as the counties north of the prominent northward bend in the Rio Grande as it passes through the gap between the Chisos Mountains in...
  
  
• Blackland Prairies
  Texas blackland prairies
  The Texas Blackland Prairies are a temperate grassland ecoregion located in Texas that runs roughly from the Red River in North Texas to San Antonio in the south.-Setting:...
  
  
• Brazos Valley
  Brazos Valley
  The Brazos Valley is a region in the U.S. state of Texas consisting of Brazos County, Robertson County, Grimes County, Washington County, Burleson County, Madison County, and Leon County, with Brazos County and the cities of College Station and Bryan at its center...
  
  
• Canadian River
  Canadian River
  The Canadian River is the longest tributary of the Arkansas River. It is about long, starting in Colorado and traveling through New Mexico, the Texas Panhandle, and most of Oklahoma....
  
   Valley
• Edwards Plateau
  Edwards Plateau
  The Edwards Plateau is a region of west-central Texas which is bounded by the Balcones Fault to the south and east, the Llano Uplift and the Llano Estacado to the north, and the Pecos River and Chihuahuan Desert to the west. San Angelo, Austin, San Antonio and Del Rio roughly outline the area...
  
  
• Llano Estacado
  Llano Estacado
  Llano Estacado , commonly known as the Staked Plains, is a region in the Southwestern United States that encompasses parts of eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas, including the South Plains and parts of the Texas Panhandle...
  
  
• Piney Woods
  Piney Woods
  The Piney Woods is a temperate coniferous forest terrestrial ecoregion in the Southern United States covering of East Texas, southern Arkansas, western Louisiana, and southeastern Oklahoma. These coniferous forests are dominated by several species of pine as well as hardwoods including hickory and...
  
  
• Red River Valley
  Red River (Mississippi watershed)
  The Red River, or sometimes the Red River of the South, is a major tributary of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers in the southern United States of America. The river gains its name from the red-bed country of its watershed. It is one of several rivers with that name...
  
  
• Rio Grande Valley
  Rio Grande Valley
  The Rio Grande Valley or the Lower Rio Grande Valley, informally called The Valley, is an area located in the southernmost tip of South Texas...
  
  
• South Plains
  South Plains
  South Plains is a vernacular term that refers to a region in West Texas consisting of the portion of the Llano Estacado extending south of the Texas Panhandle, centered at Lubbock. While prominent in the area of petroleum production, the South Plains is mainly an agricultural region, producing a...
  
  
• South Texas
  South Texas
  South Texas is a region of the U.S. state of Texas that lies roughly south of and including San Antonio. The southern and western boundary is the Rio Grande River, and to the east it is the Gulf of Mexico. The population of this region is about 3.7 million. The southern portion of this region is...
  
  
• Southeast Texas
  Southeast Texas
  Southeast Texas is a subregion of East Texas located in the southeast corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The subregion is geographically centered around the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown and Beaumont–Port Arthur metropolitan areas...
  
  
• Texas Coastal Bend
• Texas Hill Country
  Texas Hill Country
  The Texas Hill Country is a vernacular term applied to a region of Central Texas featuring tall rugged hills consisting of thin layers of soil atop limestone or granite. It also includes the Llano Uplift and the second largest granite monadnock in the United States, Enchanted Rock, which is located...
  
  
• Texas Panhandle
  Texas Panhandle
  The Texas Panhandle is a region of the U.S. state of Texas consisting of the northernmost 26 counties in the state. The panhandle is a rectangular area bordered by New Mexico to the west and Oklahoma to the north and east...
  
  
• Trans-Pecos
  Trans-Pecos
  The term Trans-Pecos, as originally defined in 1887 by the Texas geologist Robert T. Hill, refers to the portion of Texas that lies west of the Pecos River. The term is considered synonymous with "Far West Texas", a subdivision of West Texas...
  
  
• West Texas
  West Texas
  West Texas is a vernacular term applied to a region in the southwestern quadrant of the United States that primarily encompasses the arid and semi-arid lands in the western portion of the state of Texas....
  
  

As defined within Geography of Texas

Geography of Texas

The geography of Texas is diverse and far reaching in scope. Occupying about 7% of the total water and land area of the U.S., it is the second largest state after Alaska, and is the southernmost part of the Great Plains, which end in the south against the folded Sierra Madre Oriental of Mexico...

• Gulf Coastal Plains
• Interior Lowlands
• Great Plains
• Basin and Range Province

Geographical regions that extend into Texas

• Southwestern United States
  Southwestern United States
  The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
  
  
• Southern United States
  Southern United States
  The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
  
  
• Deep South
  Deep South
  The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
  
  
• Great Plains
  Great Plains
  The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
  
  
• Chihuahuan Desert
  Chihuahuan Desert
  The Chihuahuan Desert is a desert, and an ecoregion designation, that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border in the central and northern portions of the Mexican Plateau, bordered on the west by the extensive Sierra Madre Occidental range, and overlaying northern portions of the east range, the Sierra...
  
  
• High Plains
  High Plains (United States)
  The High Plains are a subregion of the Great Plains mostly in the Western United States, but also partly in the Midwest states of Nebraska, Kansas, and South Dakota, generally encompassing the western part of the Great Plains before the region reaches the Rocky Mountains...
  
  

See also

• Geography of Texas
  Geography of Texas
  The geography of Texas is diverse and far reaching in scope. Occupying about 7% of the total water and land area of the U.S., it is the second largest state after Alaska, and is the southernmost part of the Great Plains, which end in the south against the folded Sierra Madre Oriental of Mexico...
  
  
• List of rivers of Texas
• List of lakes in Texas
• List of regions of the United States