Austin is known as the “Live Music Capital of the World.” You can hear live music every night of the week at more than 100 venues. (Courtesy of Texas Tourism)
- 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
Subscribe now for more of Smithsonian's coverage on history, science and nature.
Comments