About the town » Palestine, Anderson County, Texas, United States

Palestine (/ˈpælɛstiːn/ PAL-e-steen) is a city in Anderson County, Texas, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 18,712. It is the county seat of Anderson County. Palestine was named for Palestine, Illinois, by Daniel Parker.The largest employer is the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which employs more than 3,900. Another 1,600 work at two Wal-Mart distribution centers. Other significant employers include a thriving medical and healthcare sector that tends to the large population of retirees.Palestine entered the news in February 2003, as one of the East Texas towns that received much of the debris from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, where seven astronauts were killed.Palestine is also home to the NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (renamed after the shuttle crash), which has flown 1,700 high-altitude balloons for universities and research agencies.