Where in Texas Are We?

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Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos changed its name in 2003 to Texas State University–San Marcos.

The college is in Central Texas, not Southwest Texas, argued the late, longtime president of the institution, Jerome Supple, during the consideration of the name change.

In fact, how the regions within the state are perceived changes. Although many today would agree with Dr. Supple, in the 1880s the popular view was that Southwest Texas included San Marcos, and sometimes El Paso, as well.

In 1902, The Dallas Morning News reported on the effects of the boil weevil in “Southwest Texas.” Included under that category were counties from Wilson, southeast of San Antonio, to Lee, east of Austin, even Brewster County, as well as Hays County, home of San Marcos.

“Geographers define regions in three different basic ways,” says the National Geographics Xpeditions Web site. These are:

“Formal — characterized by common properties, such as economy or climate.” [Examples; citrus-growing areas of southern Texas or the areas of desert climate.]

“Functional — organized around a focal point with surrounding areas linked by communication systems or economic association.” [Example; the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.]

“Perceptual — a construct that reflects human feelings and attitudes about areas and is therefore defined by people’s shared subjective images of those areas. It tends to reflect the element of people’s mental maps.”

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These perceptual regions of the state can be defined in many ways, including directional, and here we present some maps showing various interpretions of the regions within Texas.

Terry G. Jordan, in his study published in Texas, A Geography, polled 4,000 college students in 1977 for their self-descriptions of their home regions. Part of the results are shown in his preceptual map.

Dr. Jordan pointed out that regions with environmental terms as a rule are the oldest. “Cross Timbers, for example, was in use at least by 1840.” But many environmental terms are now nearly or completely forgotten. Redlands, for example, was a belt centered on San Augustine County in East Texas.

These environmental terms don’t necessarily describe the real physical characteristics of the region. The Lower Rio Grande Valley is not a valley but a delta, and the Permian Basin in not a topographic basin, but, rather, the term refers to the geological formation underneath.

Some regions have political terms, such as Texoma (Texhoma), which combines the names of Texas and Oklahoma. Free State is a 19th century term for Van Zandt County that has various explanations for its origin.

Also included in Dr. Jordan’s study were promotional names which appeared after World War II, such as Big Country around Abilene and the Metroplex of Dallas-Fort Worth.

Over time the area considered within the Hill Country has expanded, perhaps because of its attraction to travelers. The Almanac in the past defined the Hill Country as “an area of hills and spring-fed streams along the edge of the Balcones Escarpment in the southeast portion of the Edwards Plateau.” Possibly related to the appealing sound of Hill Country, the term Texas Forest Country now has been coined to refer to the Piney Woods of East Texas.

As the National Geographic points out, these definitions are always changing:

“Some regions, especially formal regions, tend to be stable in spatial definition, but may undergo change in character. Others, especially functional regions, my retain certain basic characteristics, but may undergo spatial redefinition over time.

“Yet other regions, particularly perceptual regions, are likely to vary over time in both spatial extent and character.”

And not everyone will agree on the names. As Dr. Jordan found in 1977:

“Unlikely as it may seem, the majority of home county students at East Texas State University [now Texas A&M–Commerce], in Hunt County, did not place their county in East Texas, nor were those at West Texas State [now West Texas A&M] or Southwest Texas State universities swayed by the names of their institutions. Only North Texas State [now University of North Texas] students voted in a predictable manner and even there the majority was rather small.” — RP.

— an except from the Texas Almanac 2010–2011.