I didn't believe it, so I checked my calculations three times: Texas has a weighted density of 3,042 people per square mile. 1,704 of its 4,388 census tracts, or 39%, are denser than this (hundreds are much, much denser). The median census tract has a density of 2,000 ppsm. In 2000, roughly 8.8 million Texans lived at a density of over 3,000 ppsm; roughly 11 million lived at over 2,000 ppsm.
As a benchmark, the Census Bureau uses 1,000 ppsm as the threshold density for urbanized areas. Atlanta's urbanized area has a weighted density of 2,362 ppsm, which means the average Texan -- East Texas farmers and West Texas ranchers included -- lives at a higher density than the average resident of Atlanta's urbanized area.
I guess Texas's standard density of 78 ppsm doesn't quite convey how the average Texan lives.
All data from the 2000 Census.
(My eyes were a little blurry when I wrote this last night. Maybe I'll check my numbers once again.)
