Lubbock Map
Lubbock stands on the flat, treeless tableland of the Llano Estacado, the regional capital of a cotton country that runs to the horizon in every direction.
Where is Lubbock?
Lubbock is in northwestern Texas, on the South Plains about 320 miles northwest of Dallas and roughly 340 miles east of El Paso. Amarillo is about 120 miles north up Interstate 27, the only interstate that serves this part of the state. Albuquerque lies some 320 miles west. There is nothing of comparable size for a long way in any direction, which is why the city's hospitals, university and grain markets pull from so wide an area.
Lubbock at a glance
| State | Texas |
| County | Lubbock County |
| Population | 272,086 (2024 Census estimate) |
| Rank among US cities | No. 84 of the 100 largest |
| Time zone | Central Time |
| Region | South (West South Central division) |
Lubbock in Texas
Lubbock is the seat of Lubbock County, one of the neat squares that cover the Panhandle and South Plains on the Texas county map — the surveyors had no rivers or ridges to work around here, so they simply ruled lines. Texas Tech University and its medical school make the city the education center for the region. The nearest other top-100 Texas cities are far off: Fort Worth and Dallas east, El Paso west, Austin and San Antonio far to the southeast. See the Texas state page for the whole span.
The caprock, the playas and the aquifer
The Llano Estacado is a raised plateau capped by hard caliche, and its eastern rim — the Caprock Escarpment — drops several hundred feet a short drive east of the city. On top, the surface is so level that rain does not run off in ordinary channels; it collects in thousands of shallow round depressions called playas, which fill after storms and dry out again. What running water there is gathers in Yellow House Draw and Blackwater Draw, which meet in the city and form the North Fork of the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos; the Canyon Lakes chain occupies that draw through Lubbock. The irrigated cotton, sorghum and peanut fields around the city draw on the Ogallala Aquifer beneath the plain, and the water table has been falling for decades.
Cities near Lubbock
The nearest big Texas cities are Fort Worth, Dallas, El Paso, Arlington and Austin. The Great Plains page explains the tableland Lubbock sits on.