The State of Texas is divided into 254 counties. Besides this, Texas is also bordered by the Rio Grande River that forms the state’s entire 1,951 miles (3,141km) long border with the country of Mexico. The Red River forms its border with Oklahoma and Arkansas, while the Sabine River forms its border with Louisiana. The borders of Texas with the other states are delineated naturally by its rivers. Other rivers of note include the Brazos, Sabine, Canadian, Colorado, Pecos, Trinity, and Red rivers. The major river in Texas is the Rio Grande river. As marked on the map by an inverted yellow triangle, Texas’s lowest point is a small lake lying along the Rio Grande River, near the Gulf of Mexico at (-2ft). Located in Culberson county as a part of the Guadalupe Mountains is Guadalupe Peak – the state’s highest point, that rises to an elevation of 8,749ft (2,667m).
The flat, desert-like conditions are broken by the isolated and rugged peaks of the Davis, Guadalupe, and Santiago mountains that are situated in the far southwestern part of the state. In the far north, the Great Plains of North America extends into the edges of the Texas Panhandle to the east of Amarillo, where they are fronted in the west by the south-eastern edges of the Rocky Mountains. The plain land gently rises (in the central and west) into the rolling hills of the Edwards Plateau, and is commonly referred to as the Texas Hill Country. From there the land stretches inland as the Coastal Plains that encompass about two-fifths of the state’s area.
Covering an area of 696,200 sq.km, Texas is located in the southern Gulf-coast region of the United States.ĭue to its vast size, Texas contains diverse landscapes ranging from the fertile Coastal Plains in the southeast to the high mountains and plains in the northwest and western region of the state.Īs observed on the map, the land is mostly flat along the state’s coastline with the Gulf of Mexico, where various bayous, bays, islands, and saltwater marshes dominate the landscape.