East Texas covers the wooded country of the state's eastern third, from Texarkana in the northeast to Lufkin and Crockett toward the south. Homeowners are often told that foundation problems here come from expansive clay.
The soil survey tells a more varied story. In most of the East Texas cities compared below, the mapped soils around the city center are low to moderate in shrink-swell. Greenville, at the western edge of the region, is the clear exception, with the clay-rich soils more typical of the Blackland country to its west.
Across the 18 East Texas cities profiled here, the soil survey rates shrink-swell high around 1, moderate around 6 and low around 11.