What Exactly is West Texas and Is San Angelo Part of It?
Believe it or not, there is a lot of debate out there about what exactly constitutes "West Texas" A Reddit user recently asked the question and there was a good bit of debate about it.
There are many opinions about just what is West Texas. If you believe what the Reddit user "heard" then San Angelo is not technically part of West Texas.
One Reddit user seems to nail it down with the most generally accepted definition.
"'West Texas'" seems to be the area west of U.S. Route 277, from Del Rio to Sonora to San Angelo to Abilene, and south of Texas Route 176 and I-20 from Odessa to Midland to Big Spring to Abilene.
Certainly not an official map, but we draw West Texas this way.
By this definition, you can clearly see San Angelo is part of "West Texas". The State of Texas would seem to agree. The "official" designation cited by the Comptroller's office at comptrollet,texas.gov defines "West Texas" as a "30-county West Texas region (that) covers 39,800 square miles in western Texas stretching from the cities of Mason and Brady on the east to the Rio Grande just south of Dryden and north to the city of Seminole.
Further, they state that the West Texas region contains three metropolitan statistical areas which are: The West Texas region contains three metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs): Midland MSA, comprising the counties of Martin and Midland; the Odessa MSA, comprising Ector County; and the San Angelo MSA, comprising Irion and Tom Green counties.
While we can debate on where exactly "West Texas" exists on maps, there can be less debate on what it means to be "West Texas" in attitude. That is something we will explore further in the future, with a lot of help from you.