Capitol Mall Seven Regions of Texas

A: Pineywoods

The East Texas region, home to cities like Tyler, Longview, and Nacogdoches, is primarily a thick forest of pines, hence the name Pineywoods! This woodland is part of a larger forest that extends into Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. The terrain is rolling with lower, wetter bottomlands that grow hardwood trees such as elm, mesquite, and ash. This region is home to a variety of plants and animals that thrive in woodlands and shorelines. Among them are cottonmouth snakes, squirrels, rabbits, and opossums. Swamps are common, particularly in the southernmost area of the region, which is called the “Big Thicket.”

The “Big Thicket” is ecologically different from the rest of the region. The land is mostly low-lying wetlands. An interesting and diverse mix of habitats has developed here. Plants and animals from both the east and the west live here. Cacti and roadrunners live near orchids and Cypress trees.

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B: Prairies and Lakes

The Prairies and Lakes region, home to cities like Dallas, Fort Worth, and Waco, is in north central and central Texas. This area is a transition between the plains of the West Texas Panhandle and the Pineywoods of East Texas. Patches of woodland running in a north and south direction are sprinkled throughout this grassland prairie. The land is gently rolling to hilly. This region is sometimes called “cross timbers” because these patches of treed areas cross strips of prairie grassland.

The soil here is rich, fertile, and black. Part of this region is called Blackland Prairie because of this.

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C: Panhandle Plains

The northernmost area of Texas, known as the Panhandle and home to cities like Amarillo, Lubbock, and Abilene, is straight and narrow like the handle of a pan with the broader area of the state below it, like the bottom of a pan.

This region has mostly flat, grassy land or plains. These plains are part of the same flat grassland that extends from the Great Plains of the Central United States. Sometimes this land is also called the Llano Estacado or “Staked Plains.” The land is mostly treeless and is on a high, flat plateau. The eastern part of the Panhandle is not quite as flat. It is lower in elevation and called a rolling plain. There is more rainfall in this eastern half and it is brushy.

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D: South Texas Plains

The South Texas Plains and Brush Country, home to cities like San Antonio, Laredo, and McAllen, stretches from the edges of the Hill Country into the subtropical regions of the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Much of the area is dry and covered with grasses and thorny brush such as mesquite and prickly pear cacti.

There are some lakes dotting the region, as well as short-lived "resacas." A resaca is a former channel of the Rio Grande River that has been cut off, like an oxbow. (Floods along the Rio Grande River can change the way the river flows so that some of those twists and turns are cut off from the rest of the river, forming an "oxbow.") Resacas will occasionally fill with silt and water, creating marshes and ponds. The plants and wildlife around the resacas vary seasonally depending on the quantity and quality of the available water.

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E: Hill Country

The Texas Hill Country, located in Central Texas and home to cities like Austin, Fredericksburg, and San Marcos, features rolling to hilly grasslands. It sits atop the Edwards Plateau, a high, flat landform. Over millions of years, erosion has transformed this plateau into a hilly terrain, dotted with numerous springs and steep canyons.

Beneath the surface lies the Edwards Aquifer, an underground layer of rock or sand that captures and holds water. This aquifer contains hidden, underground lakes, supported by the underlying limestone rock of the Edwards Plateau.

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F: Big Bend Country

West Texas, home to cities like El Paso, Midland, and Odessa, features wide-open spaces with rugged plateaus (plat-toes) and desert mountains. The plateaus have short grasses and brush. The desert area is part of the great Chihuahuan (chee-wow-when) Desert of Mexico. The only mountains in Texas are found here.

Big Bend Country is a region of extremes. The desert is dry and hot in the day and cool at night. Plants and animals are adapted for the desert. The mountains provide cold weather in the winter, where on occasion it even snows. Forests grow on the slopes. The slopes of these mountains can grow trees because the high, cooler mountain tops cause precipitation to fall from clouds moving over the peaks.

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G: Gulf Coast

The Gulf Coast stretches for hundreds of miles, encompassing cities such as Corpus Christi, Galveston, and Houston.

Near the coastal waters, you can see marshes, barrier islands, estuaries (where salty sea water and fresh river water meet), and bays. As you travel west, prairies and grasslands become more prominent.

The Gulf Coast is home to diverse wildlife and plants, and people from many cultures have enjoyed living in this region.

This nearly level, slowly-drained plain is dissected by streams and rivers. Here, you can find barrier islands along the coast, salt grass marshes surrounding its bays and estuaries, a few remaining patches of tallgrass prairies, oak mottes scattered along the coast, and tall woodlands in the river bottomlands. The soils are acidic sands and sandy loams, with clay soils primarily in the river bottoms.

Learn More: TPWD - Gulf Coast