Texas
Webpages concerning "Texas"
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Wikipedia-Article "Texas"
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| State nickname: Lone Star State | |||||
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| Official languages | None. English is de facto. | ||||
| Capital | Austin | ||||
| Largest city | Houston | ||||
| Governor | Rick Perry (R) | ||||
| Senators | Kay Bailey Hutchison (R)
John Cornyn (R) |
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| Area - Total - % water |
Ranked 2nd 696,241 km² 2.5 |
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| Population - Total (2000) - Density |
Ranked 2nd 20,851,820 30.75/km² (28th) |
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| Admission into Union | December 29, 1845 (28th) |
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| Time Zone | Central: UTC-6/-5 Mountain: UTC-7/-6 (part of west Texas) |
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| Coordinates - Latitude - Longitude - Width - Length |
25°50'N to 36°30'N 93°31'W to 106°38'W 1,065 km 1,270 km |
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| Elevation - Highest point - Mean - Lowest point |
Guadalupe Peak, 2,667 m 520 m 0 m |
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| Abbreviations - USPS - ISO 3166-2 |
TX US-TX |
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| Web site | www.state.tx.us | ||||
Texas is a state located in the United States of America. The 28th U.S. state, Texas joined the United States in 1845, after nine years of self governing. Its postal abbreviation is TX.
The state name derives from a word in a Caddoan language of the Hasinai, táyshaʔ (or tejas, as the Spaniards spelled it), meaning friends or allies. Spanish explorers mistakenly applied the word to the people and their location.
With an area of 696,241 km2 and a population of 22.5 million, Texas is the second largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous 48 states in area. (Alaska is the largest U.S. state in area and California is the most populous.) Texas has historically had a "larger than life" reputation, especially in cowboy films.
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History
- Main article: History of Texas
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| History of Texas |
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State of Texas
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Texas can claim that "Six Flags" have flown over its soil: the Fleur-de-lis of France, and the national flags of Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States of America and the Confederate States of America.
Native American tribes that once lived inside the boundaries of present-day Texas include Apache, Atakapan, Bidai, Caddo, Comanche, Cherokee, Kiowa, Tonkawa, and Wichita. Currently, there are three federally recognized Native American tribes which reside in Texas: the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas, the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, and the Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo of Texas.
On November 6, 1528 shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca became the first known European to set foot on Texas. A member of the Narváez expedition, he was later enslaved by a Native American tribe of the upper Gulf coast, and explored what are now the U.S. states of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona on foot from coastal Louisiana to Sinaloa, Mexico, over a period of roughly six years. He returned to Europe in 1537, where he wrote about his experiences in a work called La relación ("The Tale").
Prior to 1821, Texas was part of the Spanish colony of New Spain. After Mexican independence in 1821, Texas became part of Mexico and in 1824 became the northern section of Coahuila y Tejas. On 3 January 1823, Stephen F. Austin began a colony of 300 American families along the Brazos River in present-day Fort Bend County and Brazoria County, centered primarily in the area of what is now Sugar Land. This group became known as the "Old Three Hundred." The "Conventions" of 1832 and 1833 responded to rising unrest at the policies of the ruling Mexican government. Policies that most irritated the Texians included the Mexican ban on slavery, the forcible disarmament of Texian settlers, and the expulsion of illegal immigrants from the United States of America. The example of the Centralista forces' suppression of dissidents in Zacatecas also inspired fear of the Mexican government.
On March 2, 1836, the "Convention of 1836" signed the Texas "Declaration of Independence," declaring Texas an independent nation. On April 21, 1836 the Texans won their independence when they defeated the Mexican forces of Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. A factor in the defeat of Santa Anna's army at San Jacinto was the time the Texas Army got to gather itself, thanks to a small group of brave men at The Alamo. Santa Anna himself passed into captivity, and on May 14, Republic of Texas officials and General Santa Anna signed the treaty of Velasco. The Republic of Texas included all the area now included in the state of Texas, although its self-proclaimed western and northwestern borders extended as far west as Santa Fe and as far northwest as present-day Wyoming, respectively.
In 1845, Texas was admitted to the United States as a constituent state of the Union. Annexation was mutually beneficial to Texas and the United States. Texas was in a very susceptible position following independence, with a weak government, little industry, and minimal infrastructure. The U.S. could not allow such a tenuous nation to sit right on its border. Texas also lay partially in the way of the U.S. expansion to the Pacific, and its "Manifest Destiny." The major stumbling block of annexation, besides the potential for war with Mexico, was the fact that Texas was a slave state and potentially would tip the balance between free and slave states due to its huge size. Some southerners were pushing for the ability to divide Texas into multiple states, thereby increasing the number of slave states even more. A compromise was reached in that if Texas were divided, any states north of the Missouri Compromise would be free states.
During the Civil War, Texas seceded from the Union and joined the Confederate States of America. In 1870, the United States Congress readmitted Texas into the Union.
Texas today is a state thoroughly steeped in tradition, yet equally embracing of new social and technological developments. From the state capital of Austin (also headquarters of Dell Computers and known as "Silicon Hills") to the cosmopolitan air of Dallas, to the oil-and-finance rich industry of Houston to the Latinesque cultures of San Antonio and El Paso, the state tourism slogan truly fits: "Texas: It's like a whole other country."
Geography
Location
Texas borders New Mexico on the west, Oklahoma on the north (across the Red River), and Louisiana (across the Sabine River) and Arkansas on the east. To the southwest, across the Rio Grande, Texas borders the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas. To the southeast of Texas lies the Gulf of Mexico.
Texas lies in the south-central part of the United States of America. Texas is considered to form part of the US South and part of the U.S. Southwest. Some regions of Texas are associated with the Southwest more than the South, while other regions are associated with the South more than the Southwest. Texas shares some cultural elements with both regions, with more similarities with the South, especially Arkansas and Louisiana, in East Texas, and more similarities with the Southwest, especially Mexico and New Mexico, in West Texas and South Texas. Texas is so large in its east-west expanse that El Paso, in the western corner of the state, is closer to San Diego, California than to Beaumont, near the Louisiana state line; Beaumont, in turn is closer to Jacksonville, Florida than it is to El Paso. The north-south extent is similarly impressive; Dalhart, in the nortwestern corner of the state, is closer to the state capitals of Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming than it is to the Texas state capital (Austin).
Human geography
- See also: List of Texas counties
Natural geography
Texas has five major topographic regions:
- The Coastal Plain, from the Gulf of Mexico inland to about San Antonio and just southeast of Austin
- The Hill Country and Edwards Plateau, a hilly rocky area in central Texas bordered on the east by the Balcones Fault zone and Blackland Prairie.
- The Great Plains region extends into northern Texas, including the Llano Estacado and the Panhandle High Plains
- The North Central Plains
- The Trans-Pecos Desert, a subdivision of the Chihuahuan Desert, in extreme western Texas, west of the Pecos River
Geology
Texas is the southernmost part of the Great Plains, which ends in the south against the folded Sierra Madre Oriental of Mexico. It is mostly sedimentary rocks, with east Texas underlain by a Cretaceous and younger sequence of sediments, the trace of ancient shorelines east and south until the active continental margin of the Gulf of Mexico is met. This sequence is built atop the subsided crest of the Appalachian Mountains–Ouachita Mountains–Marathon Mountains zone of Pennsylvanian continental collision, which collapsed when rifting in Jurassic time opened the Gulf. West from this orogenic crest, which is buried beneath the Dallas–Waco–Austin–San Antonio trend, the sediments are Permian and Triassic in age. Oil is found in the Cretaceous sediments in the east, the Permian sediments in the west, and along the Gulf coast and out on the Texas continental shelf. A few exposures of Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks are found in the central and western parts of the state, and Oligocene volcanic rocks are found in far west Texas, in the Big Bend area. A blanket of Miocene sediments known as the Ogallala formation in the western high plains region is an important aquifer. Texas has no active or dormant volcanoes and few earthquakes, being situated far from an active plate tectonic boundary.
Government and politics
State law and government
Austin is the capital of Texas. The State Capitol resembles the federal Capitol Building in Washington, DC, but is faced in pink granite and is topped by a statue of the "Goddess of Liberty" holding aloft a five-point Texas star. Like several other southern state capitols, it faces south instead of north. The capitol building is seven feet taller than the U.S. national capitol, but it is less massive.
Republican Rick Perry has served as Governor of Texas since December 2000 when George W. Bush vacated the office to assume the Presidency. Two Republicans represent Texas in the U.S. Senate: Kay Bailey Hutchison (since 1993) and John Cornyn (since 2002). Texas has 32 representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives: 21 Republicans and 11 Democrats.
The Texas Constitution, adopted in 1876, is the second longest in the nation. As with many state constitutions, it explicitly provides for the separation of powers and incorporates its bill of rights directly into the text of the constitution (as Article I). The bill of rights is considerably lengthier and more detailed than the federal Bill of Rights, and includes some provisions unique to Texas.
The executive branch consists of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Comptroller of Public Accounts, Land Commissioner, Attorney General, Agriculture Commissioner, the three-member Railroad Commission, the State Board of Education, and the Secretary of State. The Comptroller decides if expected state income is sufficient to cover the propsed state budget. Except for the Secretary of State—who is appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Senate—each of these officials is elected. There are also a large number of state agencies and numerous boards and commissions. Partly because of the large number of elected officials, the Governor's powers are quite limited in comparison to other state governors or the U.S. President. In popular lore and belief the Lieutenant Governor, who heads the Senate and appoints its committees, has more power than the Governor. The Governor commands the state militia and can veto bills passed by the Legislature and call special sessions of the Legislature. He or she also appoints members of various executive boards and fills judicial vacancies between elections.
The Legislature of Texas, like the legislature of every other state except Nebraska, is bicameral (that is, has two chambers). The House of Representatives has 150 members, while the Senate has 31. The speaker of the house, currently Tom Craddick (R-Midland) leads the House, and the Lieutenant Governor (currently Republican David Dewhurst) leads the State Senate. The Legislature meets in regular session only once every two years.
The judicial system of Texas has a reputation as one of the most complex in the United States—if not in the world—with many layers and many overlapping jurisdictions. Texas has two courts of last resort: the Texas Supreme Court—which hears civil cases—and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Except in the case of some municipal benches, partisan elections choose all of the judges at all levels of the judiciary; the Governor fills vacancies by appointment.
County government
Texas has a total of 254 counties, by far the most counties of any state. Each county is run by a "commissioners court" consisting of four elected commissioners (one from each of four precincts drawn based on population) and a "county judge" elected from all the voters of the county. The county judge does not have authority to veto a decision of the commissioners court, s/he votes along with the commissioners. In smaller counties, the county judge actually does perform judicial duties, but in larger counties the judge's role is limited to serving on the commissioners court. Certain officials such as the sheriff and tax collector are elected separately by the voters and state law specifies their salaries, but the commissioners court determines their office budgets. Counties also have much less legal power than municipalities, for instance, counties in Texas do not have zoning power or eminent domain power (except in very rare circumstances).
Municipal government
Texas does not have townships; areas within a county are either "incorporated" (i.e., part of a city, though the city may contract with the county for