Location Within the United States and in Relation to Mexico Texas, situated in the south central region of the United States, became the twentieth-eighth state in the Union on December 29, 1845. Distance and Texas are almost synonymous. The longest straight-line distance in a north-south direction from the northwest corner of the Panhandle to the estuary of the Rio Grande is 801 miles. El Paso is closer to Los Angeles, California, than it is to Texarkana. Comparing it to other regions, one finds that Texas is larger than the combined land areas of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.