Texas Guys - Geographic question

MBK

Looking at the intellicast radar overlay of Texas, I see all the counties east of Austin and San Antonio are roughly rectangle, but rotated counter clockwise.

Most US states have counties with e-w and n-s boundary lines..... as does West Texas.

Wrangler

What's the question?

JohnnyBGood

shooter10

For about 15 years, the panhandle area was "Young's Territory" and it was nearly rectangular in shape. In 1876 or so, about 50 counties were formed from it, the same year IIRC.

The county lines in the SE were influenced by the settlement patterns of the earlier Mexican towns.

Barring natural features like mountains and rivers, county boundaries through much of the midwest tend to be retangular, due to surveying techniques.

Wild Turkey

It depends on who got there first -- the politicians or the surveyors.

The early counties were laid out the traditional way with creeks, trails, etc as the lines.

Where the surveyors came through first you've got straight lines.

They can even tell which survey crew did the work by tracking the wear in their chains as they crossed the plains.

Don McManus

My guess would be that the counties were formed a populations grew out from the gulf.

Would explain why the counties in the SE are aligned with the gulf and not NSEW.

kimi

Public Land Survey System

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System

mogley98

Simple the wave action from the GOM squished the southeastern counties.