Forgotten World (134): Texas
Texas is the second largest state in the US (after Alaska) at 268,601 square miles and the second most populous (after California) with 24 million residents.The name Texas comes from the Hasinai Indian word tejas meaning friends or allies. It is the only state to enter the United States by treaty instead of territorial annexation
Texas’s strong economic growth can be attributed to the availability of jobs, the low cost of housing, the lack of a personal state income tax, high quality of education, low taxation and limited regulation of business, a central geographic location, a limited government, favorable weather, and abundant natural resources. As a result, Texas has a gross state product of around $1.1 trillion, making it the 15th largest economy in the world based on GDP figures.
Texas is perhaps best known as an oil state. The known petroleum deposits of Texas are about 8 billion barrels which makes up approximately one-third of the known U. S. supply. Perhaps not surprisingly, Texans consume the most energy in the nation both in per capita and as a whole.
May 29th, 2008 at 9:57 am
How could anybody claim that Texas was a ‘Forgotten World’?
The biggest, brashest state of all – and the Bush family.