Texas, TX

Texas is a state located in the southern and southwestern regions of the United States of America.

With an area of 261,797 square miles (678,051 km²) and a population of 23,507,783 (based on a 2006 U.S. census bureau estimate) in 254 counties, the state is second-largest in both area (behind Alaska) and population (behind California).

About half the state's population resides in either the Dallas–Fort Worth or Houston metropolitan areas.

The state's name derives from táysha, a word in the Caddoan language of the Hasinai, which means "friends" or "allies".

Texas declared its independence from Mexico in 1836 and existed as the independent Republic of Texas for nearly a decade.

n 1845, it joined the United States as the 28th state. Texas is internationally known for its energy and aeronautics industries, and for the ship channel at the Port of Houston—the largest in the U.S. in international commerce and the sixth-largest port in the world.

The state is home to the most Fortune 500 companies in the United States and has the second-largest economy in the United States, behind California.

The Texas Medical Center in Houston contains the world's largest concentration of research and healthcare institutions.

Geography

The geography of Texas spans a wide range of features and timelines. Texas is the southernmost part of the Great Plains, which ends in the south against the folded Sierra Madre Oriental of Mexico.

It is in the south-central part of the United States of America. It is considered to form part of the U.S. South and also part of the U.S. Southwest.

The Rio Grande, Red River and Sabine River all provide natural state lines where Texas borders Oklahoma on the north, Louisiana and Arkansas on the east, New Mexico on the west, and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south.

By residents, the state is generally divided into North Texas, East Texas, Central Texas, South Texas, and West Texas, but according to the Texas Almanac, Texas has four major physical regions: Gulf Coastal Plains, Interior Lowlands, Great Plains, and The Basin and Range Province.

This is the difference between human geography and physical geography. Some regions of Texas are associated with the South more than with the Southwest (primarily East Texas, Central Texas, and North Texas), while other regions share more similarities with the Southwest (primarily far West Texas and South Texas).

The upper Texas Panhandle and the South Plains parts of West Texas do not easily fit into either category. The former has much in common with the Midwestern United States, while the latter, originally settled primarily by anglo Southerners, yet with a notable Hispanic population, is somewhat of a blend of South and Southwest.

The size of Texas prohibits easy categorization of the entire state wholly in any recognized region of the United States; geographic, economic, and even cultural diversity between regions of the state preclude treating Texas as a region in its own right.

Climate

The large size of the state of Texas and its location at the intersection of several climate zones gives the state highly variable weather.

In general, though, there are three main climate zones: the humid subtropical climate (Koppen Cfa) of the eastern half of Texas, the temperate semi-arid (Koppen BSk) steppe climate of the northwestern part, including the Panhandle, and the subtropical steppe climate (nearly an arid desert climate, Koppen BSh) of the southern parts of West Texas, particularly around El Paso.

The Panhandle of the state is cooler in the winter than North Texas or the Gulf Coast. Different regions of Texas experience vastly different precipitation patterns: El Paso averages as little as 7.8 inches (198 mm) of rain per year while the average annual precipitation is 59 inches (1,499 mm) in Orange.

Moderate snowfall often falls in the winter months in the north. Maximum temperatures in the summer months average from the 80s °F (26 °C) in the mountains of West Texas and on Galveston Island to around 100 °F (38 °C) in the Rio Grande Valley. Nighttime summer temperatures range from the upper 50s °F (12 °C) in the West Texas mountains to 80 °F (27 °C) in Galveston.

Thunderstorms are more common in the eastern and northern part of the state, although they are far from rare elsewhere in the state. Tornadoes are common in Texas, with the state averaging around 139 a year, more than any other state.

Tornadoes are most frequent in the northern and central western half of the state from April-July, although tornadoes can happen anywhere in the state at any time of year. Texas ranks first among the 50 states as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

The state's annual carbon dioxide emissions are nearly 1.5 trillion pounds.

Texas would be the world's seventh-largest producer of greenhouse gases if it were its own country, emitting more carbon dioxide than France, the United Kingdom, or Canada.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Texas".