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Big Thicket is the name of a heavily forested area in Southeast Texas, United States. While no exact boundaries exist, the area occupies much of Hardin, Liberty, Tyler, San Jacinto, and Polk Counties and is roughly bounded by the San Jacinto River, Neches River, and Pine Island Bayou. To the north, it blends into the larger Piney Woods terrestrial ecoregion of which it is a part. It has historically been the most dense forest region in what is now Texas, though logging in the 19th and 20th centuries dramatically reduced the forest concentration. The Big Thicket has been described as one of the most biodiverse areas in the world outside of the tropics. The Big Thicket National Preserve (BITH) was established in 1974 in an attempt to protect the many plant and animal species within. BITH, along with Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida, became the first national preserves in the United States National Park System when both were authorized by the United States Congress on October 11, 1974. Senator Ralph Yarborough was its most powerful proponent in Congress and the bill was proposed by Charles Wilson and Bob Eckhardt that established the 84,550-acre Preserve.〔 Texas State Historical Association〕 Big Thicket was also designated as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1981. As of December 31, 2014, the preserve includes 109,085.52 acres.〔 It consists of nine separate land units as well as six water corridors. Centered about Hardin County, Texas, the BITH extends into parts of surrounding Jasper, Jefferson, Liberty, Orange, Polk, and Tyler counties. The Preserve's headquarters are located 8 miles north of Kountze, Texas and approximately 30 miles north of Beaumont via US 69/287. ==Geography== :''One's fondness for the area is hard to explain. It has no commanding peak or awesome gorge, no topographical feature of distinction. Its appeal is more subtle''. – ''Big Thicket Legacy'', University of Texas Press, 1977. The terrain in the Big Thicket is flat or gently rolling. The area lies on the flat coastal plain of Texas, and is crossed by numerous small streams. The extent of the region was once much larger than today covering more than in east Texas.〔Cozine (2004) p. x.〕 The Spaniards, who once ruled the region, defined its boundaries in the north as El Camino Real de los Tejas, a trail that ran from central Texas to Nacogdoches; in the south as La Bahia Road or Atascosito Road, a trail that ran from southwest Louisiana into southeast Texas west of Galveston Bay; to the west by the Brazos River; and to the east by the Sabine River.〔 Timber harvesting in the 19th and 20th centuries dramatically reduced the extent of the dense woodlands. Prior to the acquisition of a reservation in 1854, the Alabama-Coushattas resided in the Big Thicket.〔Hudson, Charles M. (1976). The Southeastern Indians. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press. p. 492. ISBN 0-87049-248-9.〕 The Big Thicket's geographical features are believed to have their origins with the Western Interior Seaway, an inland sea that covered much of North America during the Cretaceous period. Over time, water smoothed out the land along what is now Texas's coastline. Small towns are contained within the Big Thicket. Most of these towns developed in the late 19th century in support of the lumber industry, as evidenced by names like Lumberton. As transportation through the area improved (including the construction of US 59, US 69 and 96), many of the towns slowly became suburbs of the much larger cities of Beaumont to the south and Houston to the southwest. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Big Thicket」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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