About

Texapedia is your guide to becoming a more informed, confident citizen and voter. Explore articles about Texas’ laws, government institutions, and elected officials. Texapedia is the most reliable, comprehensive, up-to-date civics resource in the Lone Star State.

Written in a straightforward, readable style, Texapedia is intended to serve as a resource for teachers, school children, college students, voters, and the general public. It also provides a wealth of documents, data, and background information, which can guide and inform researchers and policymakers.

Mission

The purpose of Texapedia is to enhance the civic knowledge of students, teachers, and the general public. We envision an informed, active citizenry equipped to reform what is lacking in their government while conserving what is good about it.

What We Do

Texapedia publishes comprehensive information about:

• the structure of Texas government, its branches and layers;
• rules governing the relationships between the different parts of government;
• roles and responsibilities of officials;
• functions and structure of state agencies;
• law and the legislative process;
• government finances and taxation.

What We Do Not Do

Texapedia is a civics website, not a history website. Our articles focus on what’s most important to understand about present-day government realities, without dense amounts of historical trivia. We may include brief historical context within thematic articles, or publish occasional articles on historical topics that shed light on aspects of contemporary civics. However, we generally avoid publishing purely historical information because there are already several websites specializing in Texas history, such as the Handbook of Texas.

We do not publish news, though some articles may reflect recent political developments, such as election results or key legislation.

We do not offer legal advice.

Team and Ownership

Based in Austin, Texas, Texapedia is edited by a team with experience in journalism, government, and law. In the spirit of Texas free enterprise and entrepreneurship, Texapedia is privately owned and independently undertaken. However, we take seriously our public service mission.

Research and Sourcing

Information in this online encyclopedia is based on primary sources, including Texas laws, government publications and data, and the Texas Constitution. Our articles also contain original research and information derived from public records requests.

We do not include line-by-line citations in our articles because our priority is readability and user experience. The practice of heavy citing and linking, which is standard at Wikipedia and in academia, is useful for researchers but less so for a general audience.

All of our articles are researched and written by our own team. This means that Texapedia is not a ‘wiki’ (a type of website that the general public can edit). This helps to preserve the integrity of the content. Our content is significantly more reliable than Wikipedia and often more up-to-date.

However, Texapedia is still a work in progress. Some articles, or “stubs,” are incomplete. Additionally, some information may be slightly out-of-date. Although we update articles regularly, we do not constantly monitor for the very latest information about agency budgets, statutory changes, etc.

Please contact us if you spot any errors, omissions, or significantly outdated or incorrect information.

For Educators

Whether you work at a high school, community college, four-year college, home school, or a law school, Texapedia is a resource that’s freely available to you and your students. It’s one of the cleanest, clearest, most concisely written educational resources about Texas government that’s available on the internet.

If you have used Texapedia in your classroom, we’d like to hear from you. Please share feedback, assignments, lesson plans, and ideas so that we can improve and make additional resources available to educators at all levels.

Funding

Texapedia is a low-budget operation and we do not receive outside funding from any political interest groups, political parties, industry lobby groups, or other stakeholders in politics or government. We do receive a small amount of revenue through limited advertising and book sales through affiliate arrangements with Amazon and Bookshop.org. You can view our book recommendations here. 

Apart from Amazon and Bookshop.org, all advertisements on the site are rendered by Google. Sensitive content categories are excluded, in order to ensure that the site is safe for children, youth, and students. If you see any advertisement on this site that you feel is inappropriate, please contact us to let us know.  

Political Advertising

We allow political advertising on this website because of its potential relevance to our target audience. However, we have no control over these advertisements, which are rendered by Google, and we do not necessarily endorse or support the candidates or causes advertised.

Disclaimer

This site is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing on this site constitutes legal advice.

This website is a work in progress and information on this site may be out-of-date. For example, it may not reflect the latest changes in statute, rule changes, or political developments. Although information on this website is believed to be generally accurate at time of publication, we do not make any warranty or guarantee to that effect.

Users assume all risk of reliance on the information included on this site.