Genseric, where were you when I lived there? 
Robin
if you drive on the interste, you’d have no idea. plus, you’ll see various cattle the whole way.
and as for Oregon, oh yes, it is beautiful I am sure. Not negating the beauty of tress. I am just saying the desert has its own beauty. The sunsets are marvelous out there. The colors are amazing.
I noticed several EP/WTexas dopers–any plans for a DopeFiesta out here soon?
(Sorry about the double post.)
You might say that, but you don’t. Sorry. You live in North Texas. So does anyone in the general Dallas/Ft. Worth area.
The Panhandle is not North Texas, it is the Panhandle. Lubbock is definitely in the Panhandle.
Central Texas is basically Austin and the Hill County. A case might be made that Waco is in Central Texas, I suppose.
San Antonio is on the border of South Texas.
East Texas starts around or just past Bryan/College Station.
West Texas starts where the Hill Country ends, right around Junction.
I’m a 6th generation Texan, with family all over the state, so that’s the map of Texas that I’ve grown up with. It also seems to follow meteorological charts that news casters use for the weather.
Good question raised back there… how many Trans-Pecos Dopers are there, anyway? I’m sure that with the exception of me, however, you’re all in El Paso.
As a 6th generation Texan myself, I kinda go along with Demise’s boundaries… kinda…
Waco is the northeast corner of Central Texas; San Antonio is the southeast corner. Waco is bounded to the north by North Texas (which is anchored by the metroplex) and to the east by East Texas. San Antonio is bounded to the south by South Texas. Houston is also at the boundary between South and East Texas; I-10 from Houston to San Antonio is a close approximation of the South Texas-East Texas “border”.
So, the eastern boundary of Central Texas is approximately I-35 from Waco to San Antonio. The southern boundary is approximated by Highway 90 from San Antonio to Uvalde (although many will, no doubt, find this to be a definition very generous to Uvalde and may prefer to take it as I-10 from San Antonio to Junction, placing Uvalde–and Bandera, too–in South Texas, but I digress). The western boundary of Central Texas runs up Highway 83 from Uvalde to Junction to Menard (I hate Menard!). The northern boundary of Central Texas becomes a bit trickier; go from Menard to Brownwood to Comanche to Hamilton to Gatesville, and then back to Waco.
Obviously, anything south of Central Texas is South Texas; anything east is East Texas; and what lies immediately north is North Texas.
This still hasn’t resolved the West Texas issue, though.
And I’ve still got a problem with it, since I place Brady at the northwestern corner of Central Texas when, in fact, Brady lies damn near the geographic center of the state!
Let me think some more; I’ll come back…
If it’s at Queretaro, who could say no?
Ever go to Casa Jurado?
Never been to Casa Jurado–but I should go; it’s not that far from my house.
That’s just what I was going to say. I’ve always considered North Texas to be Dallas/Fort Worth/Sherman/Denton. The Panhandle is a whole 'nother animal. So they don’t have a cool geographic name; just because they’re further north than “North Texas” doesn’t make 'em North Texas.
Think you just about nailed it on the head, Demise.
I always considered Abilene to be in the northwest edge of Central Texas, but it’s not like I really care either way. I’ve never seen an official Texas Division Chart, so it seems to be a matter of opinion for the most part. If you run a line down Texas, equidistant from El Paso and say, Texarkana, then Abilene is in the western half of the state, therefore it’s West Texas. I think of North Texas as the D/FW area and points north. I don’t consider Abilene to be part of that area.
MsRobyn, well I’ve lived in Clyde and Abilene for all of 26 years except Sept. '98-Aug. '99, when I lived in Austin. So I was probably right here.
Question–where would you say the Coastal Bend lies? When I was growing up, I would always say I was from South Texas and people would wonder how far away I lived from Brownsville. So is or isn’t this area considered to be South Texas? (FTR, I lived in a tiny town about 85 miles north of Corpus, along the Coastal Bend.)
While I was not sorry to move away from said tiny town, I sure do miss the bluebonnets. I haven’t seen them since before I moved to another state when I was 17.
Sorry for the mild hijack.
The Hill Country is Blanco County and the seven counties that surround it. My guess is that this might have been LBJ’s congressional district. Waco is on the Blacklands (ok, Central Texas…), and Junction is… well, I guess it’s on the Western edge of Central Texas with Ozona on the far Eastern edge of the Trans-Pecos.
Here’s how Texas Parks and Wildife breaks the state down by ecoregion. Take it or leave it. I do.
An argument could be made that Texas can be divided (very) roughly into East and West halves along I-35. Rain levels and geography change at the Balcones Escarpment, and this was roughly the limit of Anglo settlement during the days of the Republic.
Mayflower, I’ve always considered Brownsville to be in the Valley, but Port Isabel is on the Coast. That may be MHO though. After all, I was BOI (Born on the Island, Galveston) but spent my first six years in LaMarque, which was very much on the Mainland though only fifteen miles away.
Now, I’ve got a question: does anyone besides me refer to the land from Indianola to the Hill Country as “German Texas”? This was the path that German and Czech immigrants took to get to their land grants, with a lot of them deciding to stop and settle down along the way. As of 1980 at least, German and Czech were the third and fourth most common languages in Texas, and they’re doing a good job of keeping their heritage alive.*
*[sub]Jak se Mas! I’m not from those parts, but extra points to whoever replies to that, no fair cheating.[/sub]
Halfway between Waco and Hillsboro. 
Carry on…
Boo, Earthling. Boo…
Yeah, was this a band, a pack of slackers or three dot-commers looking for jobs?
Pantellerite, Brady is both. It probably has to do with Austin being in the “center” of the state, an idea that seems to have come from when they moved the capitol from Houston. I think that Mirabeau Lamar headed the move in order to force a war with the Commanches, but I’ve been skimming my copy of Lone Star for the past twenty minutes and can’t find the page…