Garland Map
Garland sits on the northeastern side of Dallas, an old railroad and manufacturing town that the metroplex grew around and that now ends at the edge of a reservoir.
Where is Garland?
Garland is in northern Texas, about 15 miles northeast of downtown Dallas and roughly 45 miles east of Fort Worth. Plano lies to the northwest and Frisco beyond it; Irving and Arlington are on the far side of Dallas to the west. The city's eastern edge stops at Lake Ray Hubbard, which is why Garland's growth ran north and south rather than continuing outward.
Garland at a glance
| State | Texas |
| Counties | Collin, Dallas, and Rockwall counties |
| Population | 250,431 (2024 Census estimate) |
| Rank among US cities | No. 93 of the 100 largest |
| Time zone | Central Time |
| Region | South (West South Central division) |
Garland in Texas
Most of Garland is in Dallas County, but the city crosses into Collin County to the north and Rockwall County to the east — the sort of three-county sprawl that the Texas county map makes visible all over the metroplex, where city limits stopped matching county lines decades ago. Garland is the oldest of the metroplex suburbs on the top-100 list: it was incorporated in 1891 around a railroad crossing and had factories of its own long before Plano and Frisco were anything but farmland. The Texas state page sets the metroplex against Houston and the coast.
Lake Ray Hubbard and the blackland prairie
Lake Ray Hubbard is a reservoir on the East Fork of the Trinity River, built and owned by the city of Dallas for water supply, and its western arms cut into Garland — the shoreline neighborhoods and the causeways carrying Interstate 30 and the President George Bush Turnpike over the water are the result. The ground is blackland prairie: deep, dark, shrink-swell clay that was grassland before it was farmland and is now subdivisions, and that cracks open in dry summers. There is no relief to speak of, so the drainage that matters is the network of creeks running east into the lake. Garland kept an industrial base while its neighbors went to offices, and it still runs its own municipal electric utility.
Cities near Garland
Around it are Dallas, Plano, Frisco, Irving and Arlington; further out sit Fort Worth and Austin. The West South Central division page covers the states around Texas.