Texarkana is a city in Bowie County, Texas, in the Ark-La-Tex region where Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana converge. It forms a twin city with Texarkana, Arkansas, with the state line running directly through the urban area—a defining and unusual feature of local life. The Texas city's 2020 population was 36,193, and together with its Arkansas counterpart and surrounding communities, it anchors a two-state metropolitan area covering Bowie County, Texas, and Miller County, Arkansas. The Texas side is the larger of the two and serves as the metro's principal employment and retail center. The city's form is inseparable from its railroad origins. Built where rail lines from the north and west met at the state border, Texarkana's streets were laid out along the railroad alignment, and trains have run directly from the city to St. Louis since the bridge over the Red River opened in 1874. That rail heritage remains visible in the downtown grid, which the Texas-Arkansas boundary slices cleanly in two. Texarkana functions as the commercial, medical, and retail hub of the surrounding Ark-La-Tex countryside, with an economy spanning healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and logistics supported by its role as a distribution crossroads. Its position at the intersection of Interstates 30 and 49 gives it strong regional connectivity—about 180 miles from Dallas, 72 miles from Shreveport, and roughly halfway between Dallas and Little Rock. Amtrak's Texas Eagle and Texarkana Regional Airport add passenger connections. Public education is provided by several districts, most notably Texarkana Independent School District and Liberty-Eylau ISD, reflecting the area's multi-district, two-state structure. For residents, Texarkana offers an affordable mid-sized city with deep regional roots, a distinctive border identity, and easy access to the larger metros of the Ark-La-Tex region.