States · Texas
Texas: every county, ranked.
The State Screen scores all 254 counties in Texas from 0 to 100 against each other on the four things a homestead can't do without: water, privacy, hazard exposure and access. Nothing is screened out.
Top five counties
- Knox County
- Runnels County
- Hardeman County
- Delta County
- Glasscock County
In order, without their scores. Every county's score, its four sub-scores and the raw numbers behind them are in the free map.
Free for an email address: a Google Earth file with every county clickable.
What the map says about Texas
Rainfall runs from 10 to 66 inches a year across Texas, with the median county at 30.
Across the 105 counties with enough wells on record, the typical well is 244 ft deep. In 32% of those counties the median well is 150 ft or shallower; in 29% it is 400 ft or more.
The hazard that scores worst most often is wildfire, in 159 of 254 counties.
36% of Texas's counties sit outside every metro commuting ring, and the median one is 13 miles from a town of 5,000.
These are counties, not parcels. A good score says the region has the water, the quiet and the hazard profile; it says nothing about a particular piece of land's flood zone, access or water source.
Then make it yours
The State Screen is one opinion of what matters. The complete map is 35 layers you switch on and off to suit your own search — wildfire, water rights, radon, well depth, state gun and homeschool law, distance from the cities, military sites and more — across the US, Canada and Mexico.