East Texas map
Region · Piney Woods & Ark-La-Tex · 30°–33.9° N · Central Time
East Texas is the wet, wooded quarter of the state — pine forest, oil fields and rivers that drain into Louisiana. Its eastern edge is fixed by the Sabine River and the Arkansas line, but the western edge is argued about: some people stop East Texas at I-45, some at US-75, and some simply where the pines give out.
Texarkana on the Arkansas line down to the Golden Triangle at the Gulf. The Sabine River runs along the Louisiana border on the right-hand edge.
Where East Texas starts and ends
The dependable test is trees and rain. East of roughly the 96th meridian the loblolly and shortleaf pine take over, annual rainfall passes 45 inches, and by the Sabine bottoms near Beaumont it is above 55 inches. West of Tyler the forest thins into post oak savannah and then Blackland Prairie, which is why people on the North Texas side of the line rarely call themselves East Texans.
The region has hard borders on three sides and a soft one on the fourth. North is the Red River and Oklahoma; east is Arkansas and Louisiana, with the state line following the Sabine River from Logansport down to Sabine Lake; south is the Gulf. On the west, most working definitions run somewhere between I-45 and US-75 — which means Huntsville, Palestine and Corsicana get claimed by both East Texas and Central Texas. The far southeast corner is claimed twice over as well: Port Arthur and Beaumont sit in the Big Thicket but are also solidly Gulf Coast refinery country. The Piney Woods page covers the forest itself, which is the natural region underneath most of what people mean by East Texas.
Sub-regions
| Sub-region | Towns | What defines it |
|---|---|---|
| Northeast Texas / Ark-La-Tex | Texarkana, Marshall, Mount Pleasant, Paris | Red River bottoms and the Arkansas–Louisiana corner; Texarkana's federal building sits on the state line |
| Tyler–Longview | Tyler, Longview, Kilgore, Henderson | The East Texas Oil Field, discovered in 1930; roses and nurseries around Tyler; I-20 |
| Deep East Texas | Nacogdoches, Lufkin, Jasper, Center, Woodville | National forests, timber mills, the Angelina and Neches rivers, Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend reservoirs |
| Big Thicket / Golden Triangle | Beaumont, Port Arthur, Orange, Kountze | Bottomland swamp and bayou meeting refineries; overlaps the Gulf Coast region |
| Western edge | Athens, Palestine, Huntsville, Conroe | Where pine breaks into post oak and prairie; the I-45 corridor to Houston |
Counties
| County | Seat | Population (2020) | Area (sq mi) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smith | Tyler | 233,479 | 949 |
| Gregg | Longview | 124,239 | 275 |
| Bowie | New Boston | 92,893 | 923 |
| Angelina | Lufkin | 86,395 | 865 |
| Henderson | Athens | 82,150 | 949 |
| Walker | Huntsville | 76,400 | 801 |
| Harrison | Marshall | 68,839 | 916 |
| Nacogdoches | Nacogdoches | 64,653 | 981 |
| Anderson | Palestine | 57,922 | 1,078 |
| Hardin | Kountze | 56,231 | 898 |
| Rusk | Henderson | 52,214 | 938 |
| Cherokee | Rusk | 50,412 | 1,062 |
| Polk | Livingston | 50,123 | 1,110 |
| Wood | Quitman | 44,843 | 695 |
| Jasper | Jasper | 32,980 | 970 |
| Marion | Jefferson | 9,725 | 420 |
Jefferson, Orange and Montgomery counties are listed on the Gulf Coast page even though their northern halves are pine forest.
Cities with map pages
- Tyler
Smith County · Pop. 105,995 · I-20 and US-69, the commercial center of the region
- Longview
Gregg County · Pop. 81,638 · Oil-field service town on I-20 and the Union Pacific main line
- Beaumont
Jefferson County · Pop. 115,282 · Neches River port, Spindletop, I-10
- Port Arthur
Jefferson County · Pop. 56,039 · Refineries on Sabine Lake
- Texarkana
Bowie County · Pop. 36,193 · Straddles the Arkansas line at I-30 and US-59
- Lufkin
Angelina County · Pop. 34,143 · Timber and paper, US-59 halfway between Houston and Shreveport
- Nacogdoches
Pop. 32,147 · Stephen F. Austin State University; the town calls itself the oldest in Texas
- Conroe
Montgomery County · Pop. 89,956 · Lake Conroe and the I-45 edge of the forest
- The Woodlands
Montgomery County · Pop. 114,436 · Master-planned community built into the pines
Highways
- I-20 – the main east–west route through the northern half: Dallas, Lindale (north of Tyler), Longview, Marshall, then Shreveport.
- I-30 – Dallas to Sulphur Springs, Mount Pleasant and Texarkana, where it continues into Arkansas.
- I-45 – the western boundary many people use, running Houston–Conroe–Huntsville–Corsicana–Dallas.
- I-10 – the southern edge: Houston, Beaumont, Orange and across the Sabine into Louisiana.
- US-59 / I-69 – the region's spine, Houston to Livingston, Lufkin, Nacogdoches, Carthage, Marshall and Texarkana; long stretches are being upgraded to interstate standard.
- US-287 – Woodville and Corrigan north through the timber counties.
- SH-21 – follows the old El Camino Real through San Augustine and Nacogdoches toward Bryan.
Water, timber and oil
| Largest natural lake in Texas | Caddo Lake, on the Louisiana line in Marion and Harrison counties |
| National forests | All four Texas national forests are here: Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, Angelina and Sabine |
| First national preserve in the U.S. | Big Thicket National Preserve, authorized in 1974 north of Beaumont |
| East Texas Oil Field | Discovered near Kilgore in October 1930; it reshaped Rusk and Gregg counties |
| Reservoirs on the eastern line | Toledo Bend on the Sabine and Sam Rayburn on the Angelina, both among the largest in Texas |
| Wettest corner of the state | The lower Neches and Sabine basins, where annual rainfall runs above 55 inches |