Texas, the Lone Star State, is renowned for its vastness. As the second-largest state in the United States, it’s only natural to wonder just how massive it truly is on a global scale. A recent viral map circulating on social media attempted to illustrate this by overlaying Texas onto Europe, sparking considerable discussion about the size of Texas compared to Europe. But how accurate are these comparisons, and how big is Europe really compared to Texas? Let’s dive into a fact-based exploration to understand the true dimensions.
The viral image, shared widely across platforms like Facebook, presents a compelling visual: Texas stretched across Western Europe, covering significant portions of countries like Spain, France, Italy, and Germany. Captioned with phrases emphasizing the world map’s perspective-altering nature, these posts quickly garnered attention, racking up thousands of reactions.
Experts like Hayley Drennon, a senior research assistant at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, affirm the underlying message: “Texas really is THAT big.” However, she also points out a crucial detail: these viral maps often moderately exaggerate Texas’s size. While the sentiment of Texas’s vastness is mostly true, the online representations aren’t perfectly accurate.
To create a more precise comparison, Drennon utilized official geographic data. She downloaded the “Texas State Boundary shapefile” from the Texas Department of Transportation (TDT) and employed ESRI’s ArcPro Software, a geographic information system used by researchers and institutions for mapping. This allowed her to reproject Texas onto a map of Europe, creating a more scientifically grounded visual comparison.
Her map, while similar to the viral image, reveals key differences when placed side-by-side.
(Snopes compilation Facebook/@myamericatravel, Drennon)
Noticeably, the Facebook version stretches Texas further in certain directions. For instance, El Paso County, situated in West Texas, appears to nearly reach the border between Spain and France in the viral map. In Drennon’s version, El Paso County sits further north. Similarly, the southernmost points of Cameron County are depicted closer to Rome, Italy, in the Facebook image, while they are also positioned more northward in the expert-created map.
This discrepancy, according to Drennon, likely arises from map projection. Projecting a three-dimensional sphere onto a two-dimensional surface inevitably introduces distortion. Think of it like wrapping paper around a ball – different wrapping techniques can lead to varied appearances. The Mercator projection, a commonly used map projection, is known to exaggerate the size of landmasses at higher latitudes, which includes both Europe and the United States, while minimizing the size of areas near the equator.
The website “The True Size,” which seems to be the origin of the viral map, acknowledges this very distortion. Their “About” page explains how Mercator projection inflates the perceived size of countries like the US, Russia, and Europe compared to those near the equator, like Africa. This projection makes Greenland appear as large as Africa, when in reality, Africa is over 14 times larger.
So, while Texas isn’t quite as gargantuan as some viral maps might suggest when placed over Europe, it remains undeniably large. Texas boasts a land area of 261,193.9 square miles and a total area of 268,524.8 square miles including water.
To put this into perspective, how does Europe measure up? Europe, as a continent, is significantly larger than Texas. Depending on the geographical definition, Europe covers approximately 3.93 million square miles. This makes Europe roughly 14.6 times larger than Texas in terms of total area.
However, when we consider individual European countries, the comparison becomes more interesting. Many European nations are considerably smaller than Texas. For example:
- France: Approximately 248,573 square miles, slightly smaller than Texas.
- Spain: Around 195,364 square miles, significantly smaller than Texas.
- Germany: Roughly 137,900 square miles, much smaller than Texas.
- United Kingdom: Approximately 93,628 square miles, a fraction of the size of Texas.
- Italy: Around 116,347 square miles, also considerably smaller than Texas.
In fact, you could fit several European countries within the borders of Texas. This comparison underscores the immense scale of Texas within the United States and in contrast to many individual countries in Europe. While Europe as a continent dwarfs Texas, the Lone Star State is undeniably massive when viewed alongside individual European nations. The viral maps, though slightly exaggerated, tap into a real sense of Texas’s impressive size, offering a fascinating, if not perfectly precise, geographical comparison.
Sources
An Introduction to ArcGIS Online—ArcGIS Online Help | Documentation. https://doc.arcgis.com/en/arcgis-online/get-started/what-is-agol.htm. Accessed 24 Oct. 2024.
‘Compare Countries With This Simple Tool’. The True Size, https://www.thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTQ3MTM5NTk.MTI2NTMyMjU*MjEwNzQ2NjM(MTUyMjExNDc~!US-TX*ODcyMDI1NQ.MjIyNjA0NzQ(MTQ3)NA. Accessed 24 Oct. 2024.
‘—‘. The True Size, https://www.thetruesize.com/#/aboutModal. Accessed 24 Oct. 2024.
Explore Census Data. https://data.census.gov/profile/Texas?g=040XX00US48. Accessed 24 Oct. 2024.
Map of Four Regions – North, South, East, West. Texas Department of Transportation, https://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/fin/sib/regions-map.pdf. Accessed 24 Oct. 2024.
Texas State Boundary Detailed. https://gis-txdot.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/texas-state-boundary-detailed/explore?location=30.807276,-98.916283,5.61. Accessed 24 Oct. 2024.
