Texas map

Where Texas is

Texas occupies the south-central US between the Rio Grande and the Red River, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Rocky Mountain foothills at El Paso. It is about 800 miles from north to south and about 770 miles east to west; El Paso is closer to San Diego than to Beaumont. Clockwise from the north: Oklahoma along the Red River and the 100th meridian, Arkansas along a short surveyed line, Louisiana across the Sabine River, the Gulf of Mexico along 367 miles of coast, Mexico (Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Coahuila and Chihuahua) along 1,254 miles of the Rio Grande, and New Mexico along the 32nd parallel and 103rd meridian to the west. It is the second-largest state after Alaska and the second most populous after California.

Major cities

Texas has more cities above 900,000 than any other state. The "Texas Triangle" of Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio–Austin holds about three-quarters of the population on about a fifth of the land.

Geography

• Highest point — Guadalupe Peak, 8,751 ft, in the Guadalupe Mountains near the New Mexico line; the Chisos and Davis mountains of the Trans-Pecos are the other true ranges.
• Rio Grande — the entire border with Mexico, including the great bend around Big Bend National Park. See the Rio Grande map.
• Other rivers — the Red (Oklahoma border), Sabine (Louisiana border), Brazos (the longest within the state, about 840 miles), Colorado of Texas through Austin, Trinity through Dallas and Fort Worth, Guadalupe, Nueces and Pecos.
• Gulf Coast — barrier islands including Padre Island, the longest in the world at about 113 miles, and Galveston; bays behind them shelter the ports of Houston and Corpus Christi. See the Gulf of Mexico map.
• Plains and plateau — the Llano Estacado of the Panhandle and South Plains (Amarillo, Lubbock), the Edwards Plateau and Hill Country west of Austin and San Antonio, and the Balcones Escarpment separating them from the coastal plain. See the Great Plains map.
• Time zones — Central except El Paso and Hudspeth counties in the far west, which are Mountain. Sea level on the Gulf is the low point.

Borders

Most of Texas's perimeter is natural: the Rio Grande, the Red River, the Sabine River and the Gulf. The Rio Grande boundary shifted with the river until the 1970 treaty with Mexico fixed it; the Chamizal at El Paso was returned to Mexico in 1964. The surveyed lines are the Compromise of 1850 boundaries with New Mexico (103°W and 32°N, plus the 36°30' and 100°W lines of the Panhandle) and the short 1841 line with Arkansas. The 100th meridian survey error gave Texas a strip of land along the Panhandle's east side that is legally, though not geographically, at the meridian.

Regions of Texas

East Texas (the Piney Woods, Tyler, Beaumont), the Gulf Coast (Houston, Galveston, Corpus Christi), South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley (Laredo, McAllen, Brownsville), Central Texas and the Hill Country (Austin, San Antonio, Waco), North Texas (Dallas–Fort Worth), the Panhandle and South Plains (Amarillo, Lubbock), West Texas and the Permian Basin (Midland, Odessa, Abilene), and Far West Texas or the Trans-Pecos (El Paso, Big Bend).

Related maps

• Texas county map — all 254 counties, the most of any state.
• Blank Texas map — outline for printing.
• Printable Texas map.
• Austin — the capital since 1839, when it was a frontier village.
• Cities: Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, El Paso.
• Neighbors: New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana.
• South, West South Central division, Southwest, Gulf Coast, Central Time Zone, Mountain Time Zone.
• Geography: Rio Grande, Gulf of Mexico, Great Plains.