Carthage is a city in Panola County, Texas, United States. The population was 6,779 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Panola County, and is situated in East Texas near the Louisiana state line.

According to the United States Census Bureau, Carthage has a total area of 10.5 square miles (27 km²), of which, 10.5 square miles (27 km²) of it is land and 0.04 square miles (0.10 km²) of it (0.4%) is water.

As of the census of 2010, there were 6,779 people, 2,628 households, and 1,745 families residing in the city. The population density was 645.6 people per square mile (249.2/km²). There were 2,909 housing units at an average density of 277.0 per square mile (106.9/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 69.5% White, 21.1% African American, 0.5% Native American, 0.7% Asian, 6.5% from other races, and 1.7% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 11.0% of the population.

There were 2,628 households out of which 29.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 45.6% were married couples living together, 16.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.6% were non-families. 30.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.45 and the average family size was 3.04.

Carthage (Latin: Carthago or Karthago, Ancient Greek: Καρχηδών Karkhēdōn, Arabic: قرطاج Qarṭāj‎, Berber: ⴽⴰⵔⵜⴰⵊⴻⵏ Kartajen, Etruscan: *Carθaza, Modern Hebrew: קרתגו‎ Qartágo, from the Phoenician Qart-ḥadašt meaning New City (Aramaic: קרתא חדאתא, Qarta Ḥdatha), implying it was a 'new Tyre', is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC. It is currently a suburb of Tunis, Tunisia, with a population of 20,715 (2004 Census).

The first civilization that developed within the city's sphere of influence is referred to as Punic (a form of the word "Phoenician") or Carthaginian. The city of Carthage is located on the eastern side of Lake Tunis across from the centre of Tunis. According to Greek historians it was founded by Canaanite-speaking Phoenician colonists from Tyre (in modern Lebanon) under the leadership of Elissa who was renamed (Queen Dido) in Virgil's Aeneid. It became a large and rich city and thus a major power in the Mediterranean. The resulting rivalry with Syracuse, Numidia, and Rome was accompanied by several wars with respective invasions of each other's homeland.

Texas (ⁱ/ˈtɛksəs/) (Alibamu: Teksi ) is the second most populous and the second most extensive of the 50 United States, and the most extensive state of the 48 contiguous United States. The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in East Texas. Located in the South Central United States, Texas shares an international border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south, and borders the US states of New Mexico to the west, Oklahoma to the north, Arkansas to the northeast, and Louisiana to the east. Texas has an area of 268,820 square miles (696,200 km²), and a growing population of 25.7 million residents.

During the Spanish colonial rule, the area was officially known as the Nuevo Reino de Filipinas: La Provincia de Texas. Antonio Margil de Jesús was known to be the first person to use the name in a letter to the Viceroy of Mexico in July 20, 1716. The name was not popularly used in daily speech but often appeared in legal documents until the end of the 1800s.

Bernhardt "Bernie" Tiede (August 2, 1958) is a convicted murderer, who confessed to shooting dead a wealthy 81 year-old widow, Marjorie "Marge" Nugent, in Carthage, Texas on November 16, 1996. The murder is the subject of the 2011 film Bernie, directed by Richard Linklater and starring Jack Black as Tiede, Shirley MacLaine as Nugent, and Matthew McConaughey as District Attorney Danny "Buck" Davidson.

According to the Amarillo Globe-News (October 26, 1998), Tiede — a former funeral director and mortician — was 38 years old in November 1996 when he shot Nugent in the back four times with a rifle. It was alleged that Nugent had discovered that Tiede was stealing money from her and that she was in the act of fleeing from him when she was shot multiple times. Tiede then stuffed Nugent's body in a freezer used to store food at her Carthage home, and then sealed the freezer with duct tape. Nine months later, Nugent's son, Amarillo pathologist Dr. Rod Nugent, was contacted by police when they became suspicious and called him for help. Dr. Nugent found his mother's body in the freezer, wrapped in a white sheet.