Texas - History and Heritage

• Texas is the largest of the contiguous states, with 267,277 square miles.
• The Texas Capitol in Austin is taller than the U.S. Capitol.
• More than 5,000 flowering plants are native to Texas.
• Texas has more than 4,959 square miles of fresh water—more than any state except Alaska.
• Texas’s four national forests and the Big Thicket National Preserve offer more than 730,000 acres of woodland recreation.
• Caddo Lake in East Texas is the state's largest natural lake.
• The King Ranch in Kingsville is the largest ranch in Texas and is slightly larger than the state of Rhode Island.
• Texas has more than 624 miles of coastline to explore.
• Houston, Dallas and San Antonio are among the nation's ten largest cities.
• Texas is the second most populous state in the nation, estimated at more than 20 million residents.
• The largest concentration of bats in the world is found in Bracken Cave near San Antonio, home to some 20 million Mexican free-tailed bats.
• Texas is the fifth largest wine producer in the United States.
• The tallest Texan stands a whopping 52 feet tall—it’s Big Tex, the friendly cowboy who welcomes visitors to the State Fair of Texas.
• The world's largest livestock auction is held in Amarillo.
• There are 191,000 miles of streams and rivers in Texas.
• The world's third largest single structure telescope is atop Mount Fowlkes in the Davis Mountains.
• The longest footbridge in the United States is in Rusk.
• The first word transmitted by a human from the moon was "Houston."
• The Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport covers 29.8 square miles, making it larger than Manhattan, New York.
• The world's first computer chip was produced by Texas Instruments in Dallas in 1958.
• Austin was originally named Waterloo.
• Six nations have ruled Texas: Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Confederate States and the United States.
• The tallest peak in Texas is Guadalupe Peak in the Guadalupe Mountains.
• State Motto: Friendship
• State Nickname: Lone Star State
• State Small Mammal: Armadillo
• State Bird: Mockingbird
• State Tree: Pecan
• State Flower: Bluebonnet
• State Dish: Chili