West Texas

Climate

West Texas receives much less rainfall than the rest of Texas and has an arid or semiarid climate, requiring most of its scant agriculture to depend heavily on irrigation. Northern portions of the area are irrigated with water from underground sources, such as the Ogallala Aquifer. Irrigation withdrawal, and water taken out farther north for the needs of El Paso and Juarez, Mexico, have reduced the Rio Grande to a stream in some places, even dry at times.

Parts of West Texas have rugged terrain, including many small mountain ranges, while most parts of the state are closer to sea level. The northern parts of West Texas and the higher elevations of the mountain ranges of the Trans-Pecos region are prone to occasional heavy snowfall during winter, whereas snow is less common in other areas of West Texas.

File:Guadalupe Mountains El Capitan 2006.jpg|Guadalupe Mountains File:Davis Mts Nima (2).JPG|Davis Mountains File:Big Bend National Park PB122635.jpg|Chisos Mountains File:North-franklin-south-tx1.jpg|Franklin Mountains File:Big Bend National Park PB112564.jpg|Santa Elena Canyon File:Monahans Sandhills at Sunrise.jpg|Monahans Sandhills State Park File:Caprock Escarpment Garza County Texas 2010.jpg|Llano Estacado

Counties

The 70 counties of West Texas are Andrews, Bailey, Borden, Brewster, Brown, Callahan, Cochran, Coke, Coleman, Comanche, Concho, Crane, Crockett, Crosby, Culberson, Dawson, Dickens, Eastland, Ector, El Paso, Fisher, Floyd, Gaines, Garza, Glasscock, Hale, Haskell, Hockley, Howard, Hudspeth, Irion, Jeff Davis, Jones, Kent, Kimble, King, Knox, Lamb, Loving, Lubbock, Lynn, Martin, Mason, McCulloch, Menard, Midland, Mitchell, Motley, Nolan, Pecos, Presidio, Reagan, Reeves, Runnels, Schleicher, Scurry, Shackelford, Stephens, Sterling, Stonewall, Sutton, Taylor, Terrell, Terry, Throckmorton, Tom Green, Upton, Ward, Winkler, and Yoakum.

Major cities

Smaller West Texas cities and towns include Alpine, Andrews, Anthony, Brownfield, Canutillo, Coyanosa, Crane, Fabens, Fort Davis, Fort Stockton, Hale Center, Horizon City, Iraan, Kermit, Lamesa, Levelland, Littlefield, Marathon, Marfa, McCamey, Mertzon, Monahans, Ozona, Pecos, Post, Rankin, Ransom Canyon, San Elizario, Seminole, Slaton, Snyder, Sweetwater, and Van Horn.

Economy

Major industries include livestock, petroleum and natural gas production, textiles such as cotton, grain, and because of very large military installations such as Fort Bliss, the defense industry. West Texas has become notable for its numerous wind turbines producing clean and alternative electricity.

As of 2018, the West Texan economy was in a prosperous economic period, which has been described as the "West Texas oil boom".

File:West Texas Pumpjack.JPG|Pumpjacks, like this one south of Midland, are a common sight in West Texas oil fields. File:Farm in west texas Nima.JPG|Irrigated agriculture in West Texas File:GreenMountainWindFarm Fluvanna 2004.jpg|The Brazos Wind Farm near Fluvanna is one of many wind farms in West Texas. File:Abrams Tank at the Dona Anna Range.jpg|Fort Bliss is the number one employer in the El Paso region

Sports

While there are no major league teams in the West Texas region, sports fans are faithful to their local high school and college teams. NCAA Division I college teams include the Texas Tech Red Raiders, the UTEP Miners, and the Abilene Christian Wildcats . NCAA Division II teams include the West Texas A&M Buffaloes, the Texas–Permian Basin Falcons, and the Lubbock Christian Chaparrals and Lady Chaps.

El Paso hosts the El Paso Chihuahuas, a AAA baseball team, and the El Paso Locomotive FC which plays in the USL Championship, the second tier of the American soccer pyramid. The Midland RockHounds and Amarillo Sod Poodles represent the region in double-A baseball. Junior hockey is also present in the region, with the Odessa Jackalopes of the Tier II North American Hockey League.

Health

In January 2025, an outbreak of measles began spreading in West Texas, and later in February in neighboring New Mexico. The cause of the outbreak was attributed to declining vaccination rates among infants.

Politics

thumb|right|200px|[[2024 United States presidential election in Texas|2024 U.S. presidential election in Texas]] results by county Except for the Trans-Pecos region, West Texas has become well known as a stronghold for conservative politics. Some of the most heavily Republican counties in the United States are in the region. Former U.S. President George W. Bush spent most of his childhood in West Texas. The region is somewhat more conservative than neighboring Eastern New Mexico.

The region includes much of the Permian Basin, the highest producing oil field in the United States. This likely inclines the region to support the Republican Party over the Democratic Party, as the latter supports environmentalism and action on climate change.

Several counties in the Midland-Odessa area were some of the first parts of Texas to abandon the state's "Solid South" Democratic roots; two counties have not supported a Democrat for president since 1948. The Rolling Plains to the east remained Democratic substantially longer: although Walter Mondale's 1984 campaign lost Texas by 27.50%, he won three counties in this region. Since 2000, this region swung very rapidly toward the Republican Party due to its population's intransigent opposition to the liberal social policies of the Democratic Party, and by 2016, it had nearly the same Cook PVI as the Panhandle.

West of the Pecos in popular culture

"West of the Pecos" has become a metaphor for the universe of Westerns. "Fastest draw west of the Pecos" and similar superlatives are a cliche, and the title character of Chisum observed "There’s no law west of Dodge, and no God west of the Pecos”.

Cormac McCarthy's novel No Country for Old Men and its subsequent film adaptation take place in West Texas, and much of the movie was filmed there.

References

Notes

References

1. Cochran, M., Lumpkin, J. and Heflin, R. 1999. ''West Texas: a portrait of its people and their raw and wondrous land''. Lubbock: [[Texas Tech University Press]], 176 pp.
2. Webb, W.P. 1935. ''The Texas Rangers: a century of frontier defense''. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 583 pp.
3. Greene, A.C. 1998. ''Sketches from the five states of Texas''. College Station: [[Texas A&M University Press]], 176 pp.
4. Hill, R.T. 1887. The topography and geology of the Cross Timbers and surrounding regions in Northern Texas. ''The American Journal of Science'', 3rd Series, 33:291–303.
5. Bubenik, Travis. (2018-04-15). "Texas Could Look Increasingly Like West Texas, Climate Study Says". Houston Public Media.
6. "The Regions of Texas".
7. (May 16, 2024). "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places in Texas: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2023 (SUB-IP-EST2023-POP-48)". [[United States Census Bureau]], Population Division.
8. Clifford, Krauss. (March 28, 2018). "$9.5 Billion Purchase by Concho Is Latest Sign of West Texas Oil Boom". [[The New York Times]].
9. Saphir, Ann. (May 1, 2018). "Boom in West Texas oil patch lifts wages, prices". Reuters.
10. (2025-02-19). "West Texas measles cases rise to 124. Here is what you need to know.".
11. (November 9, 2022). "Republican victories show Texas is still far from turning blue".
12. US Department of Energy. (November 2018). "Permian Basin Geology Review".
13. Tabuchi, Hiroko. (October 16, 2019). "Despite Their Promises, Giant Energy Companies Burn Away Vast Amounts of Natural Gas". The New York Times.
14. (5 May 2020). "Methane Leaks Erase Some of the Climate Benefits of Natural Gas".
15. Cohn, Nate (April 24, 2014). [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/upshot/southern-whites-loyalty-to-gop-nearing-that-of-blacks-to-democrats.html 'Demographic Shift: Southern Whites' Loyalty to G.O.P. Nearing That of Blacks to Democrats']. ''[[The New York Times]]''.
16. "DRA 2020".