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Houston is located 165 miles (266 km) east of Austin 88 miles (142 km) west of the Louisiana border and 250 miles (400 km) south of Dallas the city has a total area of 637.4 square miles (1,651 km2); this comprises over 599.59 square miles (1,552.9 km2) of land and 22.3 square miles (58 km2) covered by water. Most of Houston is located on the gulf coastal plain and its vegetation is classified as Western Gulf coastal grasslands while further north it transitions into a subtropical jungle the Big Thicket Much of the city was built on forested land marshes swamp and are all still visible in surrounding areas.[citation needed] Flat terrain and extensive greenfield development have combined to worsen flooding. Downtown stands about 50 feet (15 m) above sea level and the highest point in far northwest Houston is about 150 feet (46 m) in elevation the city once relied on groundwater for its needs but land subsidence forced the city to turn to ground-level water sources such as Lake Houston Lake Conroe and Lake Livingston the city owns surface water rights for 1.20 billion gallons of water a day in addition to 150 million gallons a day of groundwater. North Houston Top publicly traded companies, Houston Texas Business Directory The Praetorian Building in Dallas completed 1909 was the first skyscraper west of the Mississippi and the tallest in Texas! The state's two most widely recognized flagship universities are the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University ranked as the 52nd and 69th best universities in the nation according to the 2014 edition of U.S News & World Report's "Best Colleges" respectively Some observers also include the University of Houston and Texas Tech University as tier one flagships alongside UT Austin and A&M the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) ranks the state's public universities into three distinct tiers:. (7.9) 61.7 5 Aftermath 146 Halliburton, Greater Houston's arterial road network is established at the municipal level with the City of Houston exercising planning control over both its incorporated area and extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) Therefore Houston exercises transportation planning authority over a 2,000-square-mile (5,200 km2) area over five counties many times larger than its corporate area the Major Thoroughfare and Freeway Plan updated annually establishes the city's street hierarchy identifies roadways in need of widening and proposes new roadways in unserved areas Arterial roads are organized into four categories in decreasing order of intensity: major thoroughfares transit corridor streets collector streets and local streets. Roadway classification affects anticipated traffic volumes roadway design and right of way breadth Ultimately the system is designed to ferry traffic from neighborhood streets to major thoroughfares which connect into the limited-access highway system. Notable arterial roads in the region include Westheimer Road Memorial Drive Texas State Highway 6 Farm to Market Road 1960 Bellaire Boulevard and Telephone Road. Voters rejected efforts to have separate residential and commercial land-use districts in 1948 1962 and 1993 Consequently rather than a single central business district as the center of the city's employment multiple districts have grown throughout the city in addition to Downtown which include Uptown the Texas Medical Center Midtown Greenway Plaza Memorial City the Energy Corridor Westchase and Greenspoint.

. Texas Revolution Further information: List of newspapers in Houston List of television stations in Texas List of radio stations in Texas Magazines in Houston and List of films featured in Houston. . .