Lubbock ( LUB-ək) is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of Lubbock County. With a population of 263,930 in 2022, the city is the 10th-most populous city in Texas and the 85th-most populous in the United States. The city is in the northwestern part of the state (the region is the Great Plains), an area known historically and geographically as the Llano Estacado, and ecologically is part of the southern end of the High Plains, lying at the economic center of the Lubbock metropolitan area, which had an estimated population of 328,283 in 2022. Lubbock's nickname, "Hub City," derives from it being the economic, educational, and health-care hub of the multicounty region, north of the Permian Basin and south of the Texas Panhandle, commonly called the South Plains. The area is the largest contiguous cotton-growing region in the world and is heavily dependent on water from the Ogallala Aquifer for irrigation. Lubbock is home to Texas Tech University, the sixth-largest college by enrollment in the state.