Texas Hill Country

The Texas Hill Country is a geographic region of Central and South Texas, forming the southeast part of the Edwards Plateau. Given its location, climate, terrain, and vegetation, the Hill Country can be considered the border between the American Southeast and Southwest. The region represents the very remote rural countryside of Central Texas, but also is home to growing suburban neighborhoods and affluent retirement communities.

The region is notable for its karst topography and tall rugged hills of limestone or granite. Many of the hills rise to a height of 400 - 500 ft above the surrounding plains and valleys, with Packsaddle Mountain rising to a height of 800 ft above the Llano River in Kingsland. The Hill Country also includes the Llano Uplift and the second-largest granite dome in the United States, Enchanted Rock. The terrain throughout the region is characterized by a thin layer of topsoil and many exposed rocks and boulders, making the region very dry and prone to flash flooding. Native vegetation in the region includes various yucca, prickly pear cactus, desert spoon, and wildflowers in the Llano Uplift. The predominant trees in the region are Ashe juniper and Texas live oak.

Bound on the east by the Balcones Escarpment, the Hill Country reaches into the far northern portions of San Antonio and western portions of Travis County including the cities of Austin and Lago Vista. As a result of springs discharging water stored in the Edwards Aquifer, several cities such as Austin, San Marcos, and New Braunfels were settled at the base of the Balcones Escarpment. , the region's economy was one of the fastest growing in the United States.

Counties
According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, these 25 counties are included in the Hill Country Wildlife District:


 * Bandera
 * Bell
 * Blanco
 * Burnet
 * Comal
 * Coryell
 * Crockett
 * Edwards
 * Gillespie
 * Hays
 * Kendall
 * Kerr
 * Kimble
 * Lampasas
 * Llano
 * Mason
 * McCulloch
 * Menard
 * Real
 * San Saba
 * Schleicher
 * Sutton
 * Travis
 * Val Verde
 * Williamson

History and politics
During the American Civil War, due to its large, pro-Union, German immigrant population, the Texas Hill Country was opposed to Texas seceding from the Union. Subsequently, in the three quarters of a century following Reconstruction, the core of the Hill Country generally provided the solitary support base for the Republican Party in what became a one-party Democratic state.

Going back further, the Native Americans that lived in the area when the Spanish arrived were the Tonkawa and Jumano. Some Cherokee and Kickapoo people likely moved through the area to get to Mexico during the 19th century. By the Civil War, the Lipan Apache and Comanche were the most important tribes to live in the area. Indian raids likely happened throughout the area until the mid to late 1880s, although some people say that Indian raids on ranches would happen up to the 1920s.

Even when no Republicans were in the Texas Legislature during the 1930s and 1940s, Gillespie and Kendall Counties backed every Republican presidential nominee barring Herbert Hoover’s failed 1932 re-election campaign, and Republicans continued to control local government. Guadalupe and Comal Counties were less Republican, but still did not vote for Democratic nominees outside the 1912, 1932, 1936, and 1964 landslides. The region was also the only one in antebellum slave states to back the insurgent candidacy of Robert La Follette in 1924; in fact, Comal was La Follette’s top county in the nation with 73.96% of the vote, and Gillespie and Comal were the only counties south of the Mason–Dixon line to give a plurality to his “Progressive” ticket.

Geography
Because of its karst topography, the area also features a number of caverns, such as Inner Space Caverns, Natural Bridge Caverns, Bracken Cave, Longhorn Cavern State Park, Cascade Caverns, Caverns of Sonora and Cave Without a Name. The deeper caverns of the area form several aquifers, which serve as a source of drinking water for its residents. Wonder Cave in San Marcos was formed by an earthquake along the Balcones Fault. From east to west, Texas Hill Country is where the Southern United States ends and the Southwestern United States begins.

Several tributaries of the Colorado River in Texas—including the Llano and Pedernales Rivers, which cross the region west to east and join the Colorado as it cuts across the region to the southeast—drain a large portion of the Hill Country. The Guadalupe, San Antonio, Frio, Medina, and Nueces Rivers originate in the Hill Country.

This region is a dividing line for certain species occurrence. For example, the California fan palm (Washingtonia filifera) is the only species of palm tree that is native to the continental United States west of the Hill Country's Balcones Fault.

In popular culture
The area experiences a fusion of English, Spanish, and German influences in food, beer, architecture, and music that form a distinctively "Texan" culture separate from the state's Southern and Southwestern influences. For example, the accordion was popularized in Tejano music in the 19th century due to cultural exposure to German settlers.

Devil's Backbone is an elevated, winding stretch of Ranch to Market Road 12 between San Marcos and Wimberley, then Ranch to Market Road 32 continuing through to Blanco. It has long been the subject of ghost stories. Folklore about it appeared in a 1996 episode of NBC's Robert Stack anthology series Unsolved Mysteries, featuring apparitional Spanish monks, Comanche, and Lipan Apache tribes, Confederate soldiers on their horses, and a spirit of a wolf. It later re-aired when this series was hosted by Dennis Farina.

The region has emerged as the center of the Texas wine industry. Three American Viticultural Areas are located in the areas: Texas Hill Country AVA, Fredericksburg in the Texas Hill Country AVA, and Bell Mountain AVA.