Texas - 30 Million Residents, 254 Counties, and an Economy the Size of a Mid-Sized Country
Texas covers 268,596 square miles and holds about 30 million residents, making it the second most populous state after California. It has 254 counties, more than any other state. The four largest metros (Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin) together contain more than two-thirds of the state's population, and all four continue to grow faster than the national average. El Paso sits at the far western tip near the Mexican border and is closer to Los Angeles than to Houston.
Houston at about 2.3 million inside city limits is the largest city and the center of the American oil and gas industry. Chevron moved its corporate headquarters to Houston in 2024, joining ExxonMobil regional operations, ConocoPhillips, and the hundreds of service firms that cluster in the Energy Corridor along Interstate 10. The Texas Medical Center in Houston is the largest medical complex in the world by employment, with more than 120,000 workers across 60 member institutions including MD Anderson Cancer Center and Texas Children's Hospital.
San Antonio at about 1.5 million holds the Alamo, the River Walk along the San Antonio River downtown, and a large military presence centered on Joint Base San Antonio. Dallas at roughly 1.3 million and Fort Worth at just over 1 million form the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, connected by Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, which ranks among the busiest airports in the world by passenger volume. Austin, the capital at about 975,000, blends the state government, the University of Texas flagship campus, and a tech sector that includes Tesla's Gigafactory, Oracle, and major Dell, Apple, and Google operations.
West of the metros the state becomes sparsely populated. The Permian Basin around Midland and Odessa is one of the most productive oil regions on earth. Cotton and cattle still dominate the Panhandle, and the Rio Grande Valley in the south combines agriculture, cross-border trade, and one of the fastest-growing populations in the country. Texas has more than 1,200 miles of coastline on the Gulf, with the Port of Houston ranking as the largest U.S. port by foreign tonnage.
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Texas covers 268,596 square miles and holds about 30 million residents, making it the second most populous state after California. It has 254 counties, more than any other state. The four largest metros (Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin) together contain more than two-thirds of the state's population, and all four continue to grow faster than the national average. El Paso sits at the far western tip near the Mexican border and is closer to Los Angeles than to Houston.
Houston at about 2.3 million inside city limits is the largest city and the center of the American oil and gas industry. Chevron moved its corporate headquarters to Houston in 2024, joining ExxonMobil regional operations, ConocoPhillips, and the hundreds of service firms that cluster in the Energy Corridor along Interstate 10. The Texas Medical Center in Houston is the largest medical complex in the world by employment, with more than 120,000 workers across 60 member institutions including MD Anderson Cancer Center and Texas Children's Hospital.
San Antonio at about 1.5 million holds the Alamo, the River Walk along the San Antonio River downtown, and a large military presence centered on Joint Base San Antonio. Dallas at roughly 1.3 million and Fort Worth at just over 1 million form the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, connected by Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, which ranks among the busiest airports in the world by passenger volume. Austin, the capital at about 975,000, blends the state government, the University of Texas flagship campus, and a tech sector that includes Tesla's Gigafactory, Oracle, and major Dell, Apple, and Google operations.
West of the metros the state becomes sparsely populated. The Permian Basin around Midland and Odessa is one of the most productive oil regions on earth. Cotton and cattle still dominate the Panhandle, and the Rio Grande Valley in the south combines agriculture, cross-border trade, and one of the fastest-growing populations in the country. Texas has more than 1,200 miles of coastline on the Gulf, with the Port of Houston ranking as the largest U.S. port by foreign tonnage.
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