Texas Politics - Geographic Diversity

Land Area in Square Miles of Ten Largest States

State	Rank (area)	Land Area (mi²)	Water Area (mi²)	Total Area (mi²)	Population (2004)	Population Density
Alaska	1	571,951	91,316	663,267	655,435	1.1
	2	261,797	6,784	268,581	22,490,022	85.9
California	3	155,959	7,736	163,696	35,893,799	230.1
Montana	4	145,552	1,490	147,042	926,865	6.4
New Mexico	5	121,356	234	121,589	1,903,289	15.7
Arizona	6	113,635	364	113,998	5,743,834	50.5
Nevada	7	109,826	735	110,561	2,334,771	21.3
Colorado	8	103,718	376	104,094	4,601,403	44.4
Oregon	9	95,997	2,384	98,381	3,594,586	37.4
Wyoming	10	97,100	713	97,814	506,529	5.2

Large in land area like sparsely populated Alaska, Texas today more closely resembles California where population growth is rapidly filling available space.

Source: Census Bureau. (full source, footnote)

Full Source: Area data is from the U.S. Census Bureau, American FactFinder, accessed 22 June 2005 at http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=y&-context=gct&- ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&-mt_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U_GCTPH1R_US9S&-CONTEXT=gct &-tree_id=4001&-geo_id=&-format=US-9|US-9S&-_lang=en. Population figures for 2004 are from the U.S. Census Bureau, American FactFinder, at http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=y&-context=gct&- ds_name=PEP_2004_EST&-mt_name=PEP_2004_EST_GCTT1R_US9S&-CONTEXT=gct&- tree_id=4001&-redoLog=true&-geo_id=&-format=US-9|US-9S&-_lang=en, accessed 22 June 2005.

The Texas Politics Project

The areas of the ten largest states