Who Owns Texas? Seven of the Largest Landowners in the Lone Star State

By Marissa Luck and Alexandra Kanik, Houston Chronicle

  There’s a reason the phrase “Texas-size” has become a common description for anything massive. The size of Texas, with 171.9 million acres, is second only to Alaska among U.S. states, and bigger than many countries. So, who are the biggest landowners in a state so big?

  To answer that question, the Houston Chronicle has developed a first-of-its-kind tool to identify the largest landowners in Texas. It uses an analysis of property records in each of Texas’ 254 counties provided by data firm Regrid to reveal the owners of each property, large or small, in the state. The largest landholders range from ranch owners to government agencies to oil-rich real estate firms and universities.

  Pulling together a list of ownership can be tricky because a single owner may use multiple aliases. For example, University of Texas Lands, the second-largest owner, can also be found under Permanent University Land Fund in the database. Every effort has been made to find all instances of these top owners, using public records, such as the Texas Secretary of State’s business entity search, to crosscheck landowners with mailing addresses and company executive names.

  Regrid regularly updates its database for more popular regions, such as Harris County. But smaller counties are updated less frequently. While some of the property records in the data were updated in November, others include information dating to February 2023.

No. 1 USA

Acres 2.25 million 
Parcels 11,100
Counties 196

  The federal government, through agencies such as the National Park Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Forest Service and many others, is the largest landowner in Texas. A large chunk of those federal lands is near the Mexican border, extending into the region around Big Bend National Park. The park itself is more than 801,065 acres, according to the National Park Service.

  Uncle Sam’s ownership also includes wildlife preservation areas, such as the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, covering more than 110,000 acres near Boca Chica in South Texas. The U.S. also owns four national forests in Texas, including the 163,037-acre Sam Houston National Forest north of Houston.

  Elsewhere, the Army’s Camp Bullis spans more than 27,000 acres in Bexar County, providing training support and base operations for Joint Base San Antonio. In the Houston region, the Army Corps of Engineers holds 26,000 acres across the Addicks and Barker reservoirs and dams, which were built to prevent flooding of Buffalo Bayou in the city of Houston.

No. 2 University of Texas Lands / University of Texas System

Acres 2.1 million
Parcels 4,100
Counties 43

  In 1876, the Texas Constitution established the Permanent University Fund endowment for the University of Texas through the appropriation of 1 million acres. Another 1 million acres were added by 1883. Early on, cattle-grazing leases were the main source of income, but when oil was discovered on UT System-owned land in Reagan County in 1923, the land value skyrocketed. Today, University of Texas and Texas A&M University share the PUF endowment, most recently valued at $36.9 billion, according to audited reports.

  A department of the UT System – called University Lands – stewards over the West Texas holdings spanning 19 counties.

  Oil and gas companies pay royalties to University Land, which also collects income from companies that use the land for cattle grazing or wind power generation. The funds are split between Texas A&M University and University of Texas.

  University Lands says it has 2.1 million acres in its portfolio, while the Chronicle’s analysis found 1.359 million acres. The Chronicle additionally found another 573,076 acres with owners’ names such as University of Texas, UT System, UT Health, the Board of Regents of UT and other entities associated with the university system. Those parcels are included on the map and in the total land, parcel and county tallies.

No. 3 State of Texas

Acres 1.61 million
Parcels 26,000
Counties 244

  The state of Texas recently expanded its holdings when the Texas General Land Office in October 2024 bought the 353,785-acre Brewster Ranch north of Big Bend National Park from Tennessee billionaire Brad Kelley. This sale was not reflected yet in the Regrid property database.

  Big Bend National Park shouldn’t be confused with another state-owned park with a similar name to the west called Big Bend Ranch State Park. As the biggest state park in Texas, Big Bend Ranch comprises more than 300,000 acres of high desert, canyons and mountains along the Rio Grande in Brewster and Presido counties.

Another state park, the 1,060-acre Boca Chica State Park, was at the center of a controversy in 2024 when state officials approved giving 43 acres of the park to SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space exploration company in Boca Chica, as part of a land swap that would have given the state acreage elsewhere. SpaceX backed out of the deal in November amid public outcry.

No. 4 Texas Pacific Land

Acres 875,800
Parcels 1,470
Counties: 21

  Oil-rich land is also the backbone of success for the next largest landowner in the state, Texas Pacific Land Corp., which owns more than 870,000 acres, mostly in west Texas, according to its website. The publicly-traded company collects income from energy companies who pay royalties, fees for land leases and easements. Texas Pacific’s properties stretch from west of Abilene to El Paso. It says its customers include Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Occidental Petroleum and EOG Resources.

  The Dallas-based company also generates revenue from selling materials and land, as well as from operating a growing water services business to provide and recycled water used in fracking

  Texas Pacific Land was created in the 1880s when a railway company went bankrupt and its land was placed into a trust for the benefit of bondholders. By 1920, the first well began producing oil in Mitchell County. The modern-day Texas Pacific Land has benefited from the Permian Basin oil boom unleashed by fracking.

No. 5: King Ranch

Acres 820,000
Parcels 680
Counties 31

  King Ranch in southeast Texas is bigger than the size of Rhode Island and large enough to operate its own school district.

  King Ranch is known as the birthplace of American ranching, developing some of America’s first beef cattle. It inspired Edna Ferber’s novel “Giant,” which was adapted into the 1956 film starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean. The ranch’s “Running W” logo is featured on Ford’s F-150 “King Ranch” edition truck.

  King Ranch’s roots can be traced to 1853, when steamboat Capt. Richard King traveled to a drought-stricken area of northern Mexico where desperate townspeople sold him all of their cattle. Realizing this would only take away their means of livelihood, King offered to provide the people with food, shelter and income if they agreed to work his ranch. These workers became known as Los Kineños — the King’s people — who have taken on legendary status in cowboy culture after seven generations on the Ranch.

  King Ranch has grown into a major agribusiness with interests in cattle ranching; horse breeding; farming (citrus, cotton, grain, sugar cane and turfgrass); retail goods; and recreational hunting.

  Though the ranch claims to have 825,000 acres, the Chronicle’s analysis of Regrid data shows King Ranch owning 820,000 acres as of November.

No. 6: Crown Pine Timber/ Caddo Sustainable Timber

Acres 760,700
Parcels 3,130
Counties 20

  Among the state’s largest landowners is Crown Pine Timber, a legal entity tied to Caddo Sustainable Timber, which owns at least 760,725 acres in Texas, according to the Chronicle’s analysis of Regrid data. (Caddo Sustainable says it holds 831,000 acres and describes itself as the largest private timberland owner in Texas.)

  Caddo focuses on timberlands in the southeastern U.S., with a portfolio extending from East Texas into Western Louisiana. Its customers include big paper industry players such as George Pacific and International Paper.

  Caddo is the result of a partnership announced in 2022 by one of the largest investment banks in Latin America, BTG Pactual, and one of Canada’s largest institutional investors, British Columbia Investment Management Corporation.

No. 7: Briscoe Ranch

Acres 724,000
Parcels 1,590
Counties 17

  When the late Dolph Briscoe Jr. was elected Texas governor in 1972, he was reportedly the state’s largest individual landowner. By 2015, his family’s assets had grown to $1.3 billion in value, including 650,000 acres of land with 15,000 cattle, according to Forbes.

  Although Briscoe aimed to evenly divide his assets among his descendants, when one of his daughters died with no heirs in 2018, the remaining siblings squabbled over the future of her $500 million estate. The lawsuit was later settled in 2021. Now, Briscoe’s son, Dolph “Chip” Briscoe II, oversees much of the family’s land holdings across Texas, according to industry magazine Land Report.

  While the family is best known for its vast ranch and banking interests near Uvalde, west of San Antonio, its portfolio reaches into 17 different counties in South and West Texas.