Texas is enormous: it covers about 268,600 square miles (around 695,600 square kilometers), making it the second‑largest U.S. state after Alaska.

Quick Scoop

  • Total area: about 268,600 square miles (land plus inland water).
  • In square kilometers: roughly 695,600 km².
  • Share of the U.S.: about 7% of the total land and water area of the United States.
  • Rank: second‑largest state, smaller than Alaska but larger than California, Montana, and New Mexico.

How big is Texas in everyday terms?

  • You could fit Texas into Alaska and still have a lot of room left; Alaska is about 2.5 times larger.
  • Texas is larger than many countries, including France, Germany, and Japan.
  • It’s roughly the size of New England plus New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina combined.

A simple way to picture it: driving from the far western tip near El Paso to the far eastern edge near the Louisiana border is on the order of 770–800 miles in a straight‑line distance, which is like driving from New York City to Chicago.

Fun geographic details

  • North‑south span (straight line): about 801 miles from the northwest corner of the Panhandle to the Rio Grande near Brownsville.
  • East‑west span: about 773 miles from the Sabine River in the east to the Rio Grande near El Paso.
  • Land vs. water: roughly 261,000 square miles of land and about 7,300 square miles of inland water.

Mini comparison table

[9][1][5] [1][5] [1][5]
Place Approx. area (sq mi) How it compares to Texas
Texas 268,600 —
California 163,700 Texas is about 1.6× larger.
Alaska ~663,000 total area About 2.5× the size of Texas.
United States (total) ~3.8 million Texas is about 7% of the U.S. area.
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.