TexasTexas is the second-largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.The name had wide usage among native Americans, meaning "friends" or "allies"...
is the second largest US state with an area of and a population of 23.5 million in 254 counties. This covers an area wide by 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.
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TexasTexas is the second-largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.The name had wide usage among native Americans, meaning "friends" or "allies"...
is the second largest US state with an area of and a population of 23.5 million in 254 counties. This covers an area wide by 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
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...
- 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
The Canadian River is the largest 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
- Red River Valley
- Rio Grande Valley
The Rio Grande Valley aka, The Valley, is an area located in the southernmost tip of South Texas. It lies along the northern bank of the Rio Grande, which separates Mexico from the United States....
- South Plains
The South Plains is a region in West Texas comprising the area north of the Caprock Escarpment on the Llano Estacado, and extending north into the Texas Panhandle, centered at Lubbock. While prominent in the area of petroleum production, the South Plains is mainly an agricultural region, producing...
- South Texas
South Texas is a region of the U.S. state of Texas that lies roughly south of, or beginning at, 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...
- 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
The Texas Hill Country is a region of Central Texas, USA, that features rolling, somewhat rugged, hills that consist primarily of limestone. It also includes the Llano Uplift and the second largest granite monadnock in the United States, Enchanted Rock, which is located north of Fredericksburg...
- 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 the state of New Mexico to the west and the state of Oklahoma to the north and east...
- Trans-Pecos
Trans-Pecos refers to the region of Texas and southeastern New Mexico west of the Pecos River. The portion in Texas extends roughly from Langtry, Texas, where the Pecos joins the Rio Grande in the south, to Angeles in the north, near the Texas-New Mexico border...
- West Texas
West Texas is a region in the southwestern 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 TexasThe geography of Texas cover a wide and far reaching 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
The Southwestern United States is defined as the states that lie west of the Mississippi River, with the qualification of a certain northern limit such as the 37, 38, 39, or 40 degree north latitude. A 97.33 longitude degree west could qualify as the separation of the American Southwest from the...
- Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States...
- 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 antebellum period...
- Great Plains
The Great Plains are the broad expanse of prairie and steppe which lie 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
The Chihuahuan Desert is a desert that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border. On the U.S. side it occupies the valleys and basins of central and southern New Mexico, Texas west of the Pecos River and southeastern Arizona; south of the border, it covers the northern half of the Mexican state of...
- High Plains
The High Plains are a subregion of the Great Plains in the central United States, generally encompassing the western part of the Great Plains before the region reaches the Rocky Mountains. The High Plains are located in eastern Colorado, western Kansas, western Nebraska, central and eastern...
See also
- Geography of Texas
The geography of Texas cover a wide and far reaching 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