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Texas (/'t?ks?s/&_160;(help·info)) is a state located in the South Central United States nicknamed the Lone Star State. Austin is the state capital. Texas, the second largest U.S. state in both area and population, spans 268,820&_160;square miles (696,200&_160;km2) and has a growing population of 23.9 million. Houston is the state's largest city and fourth largest in the United States, while the Dallas/Fort Worth area ranks as the largest metropolitan statistical area in Texas and the fourth-largest in the United States. Traveling east to west, the landscape of Texas gradually evolves from that of the Deep South into that of the desert Southwest, going from piney woods to semi-forests of oak and cross timbers, into rolling plains and prairie, then finally to desert in the Big Bend. These wide open spaces of the Texas prairie have lent currency to the phrase that "everything is bigger in Texas".[7] Due to its long history as a center of the American cattle industry, Texas is associated throughout much of the world with the image of the cowboy. Historically and culturally, Texas has close ties to the American South. However, with its Spanish and Mexican roots, it can also be classified as Southwestern. While residents acknowledge these categories, many claim an independent "Texan" identity superseding regional labels. Spain was the first European country to claim the area of Texas. Mexico owned the territory until 1836 when Texas won its independence becoming an independent Republic. In 1845 it joined the United States as the 28th state. The state's annexation helped set off a chain of events that caused the Mexican-American War in 1846 and the U.S. Civil War. In the early 1900s, oil discoveries initiated an economic boom in the state. Texas has since economically diversified. It has a growing base in high technology, biomedical research and higher education. The state's gross state product ranks as the second-highest in the nation. The state's name derives from táysha, a word in the Caddoan language of the Hasinai, which means "allies" or "friends".[2][8][9] The word "Texas" has many different manifestations in American English vernacular. Due to the state's large geographic size, the expression "Texas-sized" means "big".[10][11] Many Texas-related words, including the term Tex-Mex, also use the prefix, "Tex".
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