Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Land
Texas, as everyone here will tell you, is big. The second-largest state in the union has an
area more than 261,000 sq miles. While that's less than half the size of Alaska, Texas is lar-
ger than all of Germany, the UK, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands combined. But
those Western movies lie: Texas is not all dry desert, tumbleweeds and oil wells. In fact,
with the natural boundaries of the Gulf of Mexico at the east and the Rio Grande at the
west and south, Texas ranks as the ninth-largest state for total water area.
Within each major natural region of Texas there is a remarkable range of terrain. In
northeast Texas, the Piney Woods is the southwestern edge of the southern coniferous
forest belt and is characterized by a mix of pine and hardwood growth. The Gulf Coastal
Plains, which run along the coast from Port Arthur to Brownsville, contain bays, lagoons,
sandy barrier islands, saltwater marshes and flat grasslands. Yes, in the furthest southern
reaches, palm trees do grow here naturally.
Verdant hills and meandering rivers make up central Hill Country, which is part of the
Edward Plateau, a limestone karst region. The Southern Texas Plains, from Hill Country
south to the Rio Grande Valley, is brush country, with scrubby vegetation and abundant
prickly pear cacti. Spreading north of Austin there are several regions of prairies and
plains. The land in the Panhandle is the highest and driest of these. Tablelands spread east
of Lubbuck and Amarillo, containing red rock canyons, badlands and mesas.
In west Texas, the basin-and-range terrain is home to the Guadalupe Mountains, with el-
evations of more than 8000ft, as well as to Chihuahuan Desert lands. South of the Guada-
lupe Mountains, the Big Bend region follows the Rio Grande through dramatic canyons
and sheer wall beyond the Chisos Mountains.
