Texas General Information
GENERAL
Abbreviated as TX on ABBREVIATIONFINDER.ORG, Texas (The Lone Star State) is a state in the United States of America. Texas is located in the southwest of the United States and is bordered by Oklahoma to the north, Arkansas to the northeast, Louisiana to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast, Mexico to the southwest and New Mexico to the west. Texas is, after Alaska, the second largest state in the USA in terms of area. It is also the second largest state in terms of population, after California.
Nickname
Lone Star State
Capital
Austin
Biggest town
Houston
Area
Rank (within the USA): 2nd out of 50 states
Total: 696,241 km²
Land: 678,907 km²
Water (%): 17,333 km² (2.5%)
Residents
Rank (within the USA): 2nd out of 50 states
Total (2000): 20,851,820
Density: 30 / km²
State membership
Place: 28th
Since: December 29, 1845
GEOGRAPHY
Time zone: Mountain: UTC –7 / –6
Central: UTC -6 / -5
Latitude: 25 ° 50’N to 36 ° 30’N
Longitude 93 ° 31’W to 106 ° 38’W
Width: 1,065 km
Length: 1,270 km
Highest position: 2,667 m
Average location: 520 m
Lowest position: 0 m
Texas consists of three different climates. From the coast, which is bordered by lagoons for almost its entire length, a relatively flat land extends 50 to 100 km inland, which is partly very fertile and particularly suitable for the cultivation of cotton, sugar cane and, in some places, rice. Behind it rises an undulating, hilly country, which, up to 320 km wide, encompasses the entire northeast of the state, is largely covered by prairies. The northwestern part of the national territory is mountainous and highlands and consists partly of a 1,300 m high desert sandstone plateau (Spanish “llano estacado”, English “staked plain”).
Texas is rich in rivers, although very few are navigable throughout the year. The Red River separates it from the Indian territory, the Sabine from Louisiana and the Rio Grande from Mexico. The climate is considered healthy compared to the other southern states of the USA. The largest city of Houston is geographically in the southeast of the country. Dallas, the second largest city, and Fort Worth are to the northeast. El Paso and Corpus Christi are in the southwest.
POPULATION
There are 20,851,820 residents in Texas.
HISTORY
The story of Texas ‘or Tejas’, (from Indian Teischas, friends) begins 10,000 years before Christ. During this time period the first Indians reached the area on the Gulf of Mexico. In 1519 the Spaniard Pineda created the first map of the Texan coast. This was also the beginning of the Spanish occupation of the territory. Nine years later, in 1528, the Spaniard Cabeza de Vaca arrived in what is now Galveston. His ship was shipwrecked. The small group of survivors marched across the Indian territories to Mexico City and later spread the legend of the “Seven Cities of Gold”.
The Spanish adventurer Coronado, drawn by the stories of the seven cities, crossed the western part of Texas and parts of what is now New Mexico up to Kansas. He did not find any golden cities. The rumor persisted over the centuries. In the following years many localities and especially missions were founded in what is now Texas. In 1621 Spanish immigrants or Spanish Mexicans founded the city of Corpus Christi de la Isleta. A French attempt to colonize the territory of Texas came in 1685. The adventurer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, reached Matagorda Bay by ship and founded Fort St. Louis there. The settlement suffered badly from Indian attacks, illnesses and the loss of important material through shipwrecks. Just two years later, La Salle was murdered by his own people when he tried to get help. St. Louis was then given up. Texas was Spanish again. In the colonies in the Mississippi Delta, however, the French were able to hold their own.
In 1718 the Mission San Antonio de Valero was founded. Over 100 years later, this mission will go down in history as The Alamo. In 1821 Texas became part of Mexico, which had become independent from Spain. Many adventurers from the United States already gathered here during the Mexican struggle for independence. After the North American Colonel Stephen F. Austin received the approval of the central government of Mexico in 1823 to settle with 300 families in the state of Texas, he founded the city of San Felipe de Austín. The deal with Austin was very easy. He had to exchange his US citizenship for a Mexican one. It was therefore subject to Mexican jurisdiction. More and more settlers from the north are reaching the Gulf of Mexico.
About 45,000 people from the north had settled in Texas by 1835. Tensions between American settlers, on the one hand, and the Mexicans and the Mexican government, under President Santa Anna, on the other, grew more intense. Religious, cultural and political problems in particular seemed insurmountable. Stephen F. Austin was even arrested while visiting Mexico City. Shortly thereafter, Santa Anna sent troops (4,000-5,000 men) to the Mexican state. On October 2, 1835, the first battle between the parties broke out. The Battle of Gonzales marks the first battle for Texas independence. On March 2, 1836, the Texans, relying on the assistance of the ruling party in the United States, which wanted an increase in slave states, declared themselves for independent and appointed General Sam Houston (namesake of the city of Houston) as military commander in chief. The Mexican army under the President and General Santa Anna occupied the capital of Texas, San Felipe de Austín in the course of the hostilities.
On March 6, 1836, the mission city of Alamo (near San Antonio) was captured by the Mexicans after a thirteen-day siege. All of the defense attorneys (fewer than 190) were killed, including David Crockett, Jim Bowie (inventor of the Bowie knife) and William B. Travis. The Mexican troops (about 1,600 soldiers) were surprisingly defeated on April 21, 1836 near the Río San Jacinto River (today east of Houston) by the Texans under Sam Houston, with the Mexican President General AL de Santa Anna in captivity of the Texans came. Further expeditions by the Mexicans in the following years also failed. Texas was recognized as an independent republic by France and England on November 23, 1839 and November 14, 1841, respectively. General Sam Houston became the first President of the Independent Nation and Republic of Texas. With an interruption it was until shortly before the merger with the USA.
From 1856–1861 Sam Houston was governor of the US state. Stephen F. Austin became his state’s Secretary of State, but died of a lung disease just two months after taking office. In Texas itself, however, the majority wanted to join the United States. The country was then annexed to the United States on February 19, 1845 (approval by the US Congress on March 1, 1845). Formal admission to the confederation took place on December 29, 1845. A war broke out between the USA and Mexico in 1846, which ended on February 2, 1848 with the Guadalupe Hidalgo Peace Treaty. Mexico waived its claims to Texas and the area between the Rio Grande and Nueces Rivers, but by resolution of September 7, 1850, the US government assigned part of this area to New Mexico, which had since been annexed to the Union as territory. Texas received $ 10 million in compensation for this. In the American Civil War, Texas was one of the states of the Southern Confederation (compare Confederate States of America).
Texas was not allowed to return to the Union until February 15, 1876, as a federal state. German immigrants have had a significant impact on the US state. Organized German immigration began in 1834 and is mainly due to the “Association for the Protection of German Emigration to Texas”, also known as the “Mainz Adelsverein”. Around 100,000 Texans were still German-speaking at the turn of the 20th century. Most of them settled in central Texas in the Austin and San Antonio area. Above all, the influence of the First World War led to a rapid decline in the German-language element in Texas. The influence of German immigrants can be seen today in place names such as New Braunfels or that of the “Schlitterbahn” water park. In New Braunfels, about 40 miles south of the capital Austin, the “Wurstfest” is celebrated every year. In the district of “Gruene”, founded in 1872 by Henry D. Gruene, is the oldest surviving dance hall in Texas, the “Green Hall”. It is still a historical place of live music and dance events today. There is also a German colony near Fredericksburg (Friedrichsburg). The city’s homepage still greets visitors today with “Welcome”, and some of the restaurant menus are still bilingual. The settlement of Luckenbach also became known here, which was mentioned in a song interpreted by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson with the title ” Luckenbach, Texas”. The song made it to number 1 on the US country charts. Around 10 to 20,000 older Texans are still German-speaking today because they grew up with German as their mother tongue in their childhood.
ECONOMY
The north is very fertile and is still used today for raising livestock. Crude oil was produced in the entire south and west until the early 1980s.
CITIES
Houston 1,700,000 residents, Dallas 1,100,000, San Antonio 1,000,000, El Paso 570,000, Fort Worth 560,000, Austin 500,000, Arlington 300,000
Texas Counties and County Seats
According to Countryaah, there are a total of 254 counties in the state of Texas.
- Anderson County (County Seat: Palestine)
- Andrews County (County Seat: Andrews)
- Angelina County (County Seat: Lufkin)
- Aransas County (County Seat: Rockport)
- Archer County (County Seat: Archer City)
- Armstrong County (County Seat: Claude)
- Atascosa County (County Seat: Jourdanton)
- Austin County (County Seat: Bellville)
- Bailey County (County Seat: Muleshoe)
- Bandera County (County Seat: Bandera)
- Bastrop County (County Seat: Bastrop)
- Baylor County (County Seat: Seymour)
- Bee County (County Seat: Beeville)
- Bell County (County Seat: Belton)
- Bexar County (County Seat: San Antonio)
- Blanco County (County Seat: Johnson City)
- Borden County (County Seat: Gail)
- Bosque County (County Seat: Meridian)
- Bowie County (County Seat: Boston)
- Brazoria County (County Seat: Angleton)
- Brazos County (County Seat: Bryan)
- Brewster County (County Seat: Alpine)
- Briscoe County (County Seat: Silverton)
- Brooks County (County Seat: Falfurrias)
- Brown County (County Seat: Brownwood)
- Burleson County (County Seat: Caldwell)
- Burnet County (County Seat: Burnet)
- Caldwell County (County Seat: Lockhart)
- Calhoun County (County Seat: Port Lavaca)
- Callahan County (County Seat: Baird)
- Cameron County (County Seat: Brownsville)
- Camp County (County Seat: Pittsburg)
- Carson County (County Seat: Panhandle)
- Cass County (County Seat: Linden)
- Castro County (County Seat: Dimmitt)
- Chambers County (County Seat: Anahuac)
- Cherokee County (County Seat: Rusk)
- Childress County (County Seat: Childress)
- Clay County (County Seat: Henrietta)
- Cochran County (County Seat: Morton)
- Coke County (County Seat: Robert Lee)
- Coleman County (County Seat: Coleman)
- Collin County (County Seat: McKinney)
- Collingsworth County (County Seat: Wellington)
- Colorado County (County Seat: Columbus)
- Comal County (County Seat: New Braunfels)
- Comanche County (County Seat: Comanche)
- Concho County (County Seat: Paint Rock)
- Cooke County (County Seat: Gainesville)
- Coryell County (County Seat: Gatesville)
- Cottle County (County Seat: Paducah)
- Crane County (County Seat: Crane)
- Crockett County (County Seat: Ozona)
- Crosby County (County Seat: Crosbyton)
- Culberson County (County Seat: Van Horn)
- Dallam County (County Seat: Dalhart)
- Dallas County (County Seat: Dallas)
- Dawson County (County Seat: Lamesa)
- Deaf Smith County (County Seat: Hereford)
- Delta County (County Seat: Cooper)
- Denton County (County Seat: Denton)
- DeWitt County (County Seat: Cuero)
- Dickens County (County Seat: Dickens)
- Dimmit County (County Seat: Carrizo Springs)
- Donley County (County Seat: Clarendon)
- Duval County (County Seat: San Diego)
- Eastland County (County Seat: Eastland)
- Ector County (County Seat: Odessa)
- Edwards County (County Seat: Rocksprings)
- El Paso County (County Seat: El Paso)
- Ellis County (County Seat: Waxahachie)
- Erath County (County Seat: Stephenville)
- Falls County (County Seat: Marlin)
- Fannin County (County Seat: Bonham)
- Fayette County (County Seat: La Grange)
- Fisher County (County Seat: Roby)
- Floyd County (County Seat: Floydada)
- Foard County (County Seat: Crowell)
- Fort Bend County (County Seat: Richmond)
- Franklin County (County Seat: Mount Vernon)
- Freestone County (County Seat: Fairfield)
- Frio County (County Seat: Pearsall)
- Gaines County (County Seat: Seminole)
- Galveston County (County Seat: Galveston)
- Garza County (County Seat: Post)
- Gillespie County (County Seat: Fredericksburg)
- Glasscock County (County Seat: Garden City)
- Goliad County (County Seat: Goliad)
- Gonzales County (County Seat: Gonzales)
- Gray County (County Seat: Pampa)
- Grayson County (County Seat: Sherman)
- Gregg County (County Seat: Longview)
- Grimes County (County Seat: Anderson)
- Guadalupe County (County Seat: Seguin)
- Hale County (County Seat: Plainview)
- Hall County (County Seat: Memphis)
- Hamilton County (County Seat: Hamilton)
- Hansford County (County Seat: Spearman)
- Hardeman County (County Seat: Quanah)
- Hardin County (County Seat: Kountze)
- Harris County (County Seat: Houston)
- Harrison County (County Seat: Marshall)
- Hartley County (County Seat: Channing)
- Haskell County (County Seat: Haskell)
- Hays County (County Seat: San Marcos)
- Hemphill County (County Seat: Canadian)
- Henderson County (County Seat: Athens)
- Hidalgo County (County Seat: Edinburg)
- Hill County (County Seat: Hillsboro)
- Hockley County (County Seat: Levelland)
- Hood County (County Seat: Granbury)
- Hopkins County (County Seat: Sulphur Springs)
- Houston County (County Seat: Crockett)
- Howard County (County Seat: Big Spring)
- Hudspeth County (County Seat: Sierra Blanca)
- Hunt County (County Seat: Greenville)
- Hutchinson County (County Seat: Stinnett)
- Irion County (County Seat: Mertzon)
- Jack County (County Seat: Jacksboro)
- Jackson County (County Seat: Edna)
- Jasper County (County Seat: Jasper)
- Jeff Davis County (County Seat: Fort Davis)
- Jefferson County (County Seat: Beaumont)
- Jim Hogg County (County Seat: Hebbronville)
- Jim Wells County (County Seat: Alice)
- Johnson County (County Seat: Cleburne)
- Jones County (County Seat: Anson)
- Karnes County (County Seat: Karnes City)
- Kaufman County (County Seat: Kaufman)
- Kendall County (County Seat: Boerne)
- Kenedy County (County Seat: Sarita)
- Kent County (County Seat: Jayton)
- Kerr County (County Seat: Kerrville)
- Kimble County (County Seat: Junction)
- King County (County Seat: Guthrie)
- Kinney County (County Seat: Brackettville)
- Kleberg County (County Seat: Kingsville)
- Knox County (County Seat: Benjamin)
- La Salle County (County Seat: Cotulla)
- Lamar County (County Seat: Paris)
- Lamb County (County Seat: Littlefield)
- Lampasas County (County Seat: Lampasas)
- Lavaca County (County Seat: Hallettsville)
- Lee County (County Seat: Giddings)
- Leon County (County Seat: Centerville)
- Liberty County (County Seat: Liberty)
- Limestone County (County Seat: Groesbeck)
- Lipscomb County (County Seat: Lipscomb)
- Live Oak County (County Seat: George West)
- Llano County (County Seat: Llano)
- Loving County (County Seat: Mentone)
- Lubbock County (County Seat: Lubbock)
- Lynn County (County Seat: Tahoka)
- Madison County (County Seat: Madisonville)
- Marion County (County Seat: Jefferson)
- Martin County (County Seat: Stanton)
- Mason County (County Seat: Mason)
- Matagorda County (County Seat: Bay City)
- Maverick County (County Seat: Eagle Pass)
- McCulloch County (County Seat: Brady)
- McLennan County (County Seat: Waco)
- McMullen County (County Seat: Tilden)
- Medina County (County Seat: Hondo)
- Menard County (County Seat: Menard)
- Midland County (County Seat: Midland)
- Milam County (County Seat: Cameron)
- Mills County (County Seat: Goldthwaite)
- Mitchell County (County Seat: Colorado City)
- Montague County (County Seat: Montague)
- Montgomery County (County Seat: Conroe)
- Moore County (County Seat: Dumas)
- Morris County (County Seat: Daingerfield)
- Motley County (County Seat: Matador)
- Nacogdoches County (County Seat: Nacogdoches)
- Navarro County (County Seat: Corsicana)
- Newton County (County Seat: Newton)
- Nolan County (County Seat: Sweetwater)
- Nueces County (County Seat: Corpus Christi)
- Ochiltree County (County Seat: Perryton)
- Oldham County (County Seat: Vega)
- Orange County (County Seat: Orange)
- Palo Pinto County (County Seat: Palo Pinto)
- Panola County (County Seat: Carthage)
- Parker County (County Seat: Weatherford)
- Parmer County (County Seat: Farwell)
- Pecos County (County Seat: Fort Stockton)
- Polk County (County Seat: Livingston)
- Potter County (County Seat: Amarillo)
- Presidio County (County Seat: Marfa)
- Rains County (County Seat: Emory)
- Randall County (County Seat: Canyon)
- Reagan County (County Seat: Big Lake)
- Real County (County Seat: Leakey)
- Red River County (County Seat: Clarksville)
- Reeves County (County Seat: Pecos)
- Refugio County (County Seat: Refugio)
- Roberts County (County Seat: Miami)
- Robertson County (County Seat: Franklin)
- Rockwall County (County Seat: Rockwall)
- Runnels County (County Seat: Ballinger)
- Rusk County (County Seat: Henderson)
- Sabine County (County Seat: Hemphill)
- San Augustine County (County Seat: San Augustine)
- San Jacinto County (County Seat: Coldspring)
- San Patricio County (County Seat: Sinton)
- San Saba County (County Seat: San Saba)
- Schleicher County (County Seat: Eldorado)
- Scurry County (County Seat: Snyder)
- Shackelford County (County Seat: Albany)
- Shelby County (County Seat: Center)
- Sherman County (County Seat: Stratford)
- Smith County (County Seat: Tyler)
- Somervell County (County Seat: Glen Rose)
- Starr County (County Seat: Rio Grande City)
- Stephens County (County Seat: Breckenridge)
- Sterling County (County Seat: Sterling City)
- Stonewall County (County Seat: Aspermont)
- Sutton County (County Seat: Sonora)
- Swisher County (County Seat: Tulia)
- Tarrant County (County Seat: Fort Worth)
- Taylor County (County Seat: Abilene)
- Terrell County (County Seat: Sanderson)
- Terry County (County Seat: Brownfield)
- Throckmorton County (County Seat: Throckmorton)
- Titus County (County Seat: Mount Pleasant)
- Tom Green County (County Seat: San Angelo)
- Travis County (County Seat: Austin)
- Trinity County (County Seat: Groveton)
- Tyler County (County Seat: Woodville)
- Upshur County (County Seat: Gilmer)
- Upton County (County Seat: Rankin)
- Uvalde County (County Seat: Uvalde)
- Val Verde County (County Seat: Del Rio)
- Van Zandt County (County Seat: Canton)
- Victoria County (County Seat: Victoria)
- Walker County (County Seat: Huntsville)
- Waller County (County Seat: Hempstead)
- Ward County (County Seat: Monahans)
- Washington County (County Seat: Brenham)
- Webb County (County Seat: Laredo)
- Wharton County (County Seat: Wharton)
- Wheeler County (County Seat: Wheeler)
- Wichita County (County Seat: Wichita Falls)
- Wilbarger County (County Seat: Vernon)
- Willacy County (County Seat: Raymondville)
- Williamson County (County Seat: Georgetown)
- Wilson County (County Seat: Floresville)
- Winkler County (County Seat: Kermit)
- Wise County (County Seat: Decatur)
- Wood County (County Seat: Quitman)
- Yoakum County (County Seat: Plains)
- Young County (County Seat: Graham)
- Zapata County (County Seat: Zapata)
- Zavala County (County Seat: Crystal City)
