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South Central Plains (Piney Woods)

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↑Map Legend & Subregion List

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Name	†	Color on Map	EPA Code‡
Tertiary Uplands	○		35a
Floodplains and Low Terraces	○		35b
Pleistocene Fluvial Terraces	○		35c
Cretaceous Dissected Uplands	○		35d
Southern Tertiary Uplands	○		35e
Flatwoods	○		35f
Red River Bottomlands	○		35g
Blackland Prairie	○		35h

† Status: ✓ = Complete ○ = Needs Image … = Incomplete ∅ = Stub Only

‡ This code refers to the US EPA's Level 4 ecoregion codes for the continental U.S., see here.

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↑About the South Central Plains (Piney Woods)

The South Central Plains, referred to locally as the Piney Woods, is a region located in southwestern Arkansas, northwestern Louisiana, far eastern Texas, and a small piece of southeastern Okhlahoma. It represents the westernmost portion of the area of the southeastern U.S. dominated by pine forests.

This region lies towards the warmer end of a humid subtropical climate. Rainfall is much higher than regions to the west, but lower than in the mountains to north or the coastal areas to the south. Rainfall in this region tends to be highest in the southeast. Although much of the year has similar levels of precipitation, August has markedly less, receiving half or less than half the rainfall as the wettest months, although relative humidity usually remains high through this "dry" season. Precipitation peaks in June in parts of the region, in November in others. Summer can see severe thunderstorms, hail, and tornadoes. Winters are mild but can bring some ice, sleet, and on average a month or slightly more worth of freezing temperatures.

Original forest cover was a mix of pine and hardwood forests. Nowadays, this area is dominated by pine forest, with a small amount of agriculture, mostly in the floodplain of the Red River. Much of the forests here are plantations of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) and shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata). Forest cover is denser to the east of this region.

Most of this area is sparsely populated, but there are some small cities. Shreveport, LA is the largest city, with smaller cities including Texarkana, El Dorado, AR, Alexandria, LA, Longview, TX, Tyler, TX, Nacogdoches, TX, Lufkin, TX. Population density is highest along the east-west corridor of Interstate 20, and lowest in the northeasternmost portion of this region, located in Arkansas.

This region is bordered to the east by the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, to the south by the Western Gulf Coast Plain, to the north by the Ouachita Mountains, and to the west by the East Central Texas Plains. There is also a small border to the southwest with the Texas Blackland Prairies, and at the northwest, with the very western end of the Arkansas Valley and the Cross Timbers region.

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↑References

1. Wiken, E., Griffith, G. "North American Terrestrial Ecoregions - Level III", Commission for Environmental Cooperation, (2011) Web.