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- The Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) contains nine Texas counties: Austin, Brazoria, Chambers, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Liberty, Montgomery and Waller.
- The Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land MSA covers 9,444 square miles, an area larger than five other U.S. states: New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island.
- Harris County covers 1,778 square miles. That’s enough space to fit the cities of Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New York City and Seattle with room to spare.
- At 665 square miles, the City of Houston is larger than the cities of Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix and San Diego.
With a population of 2,314,157 in 2023, Houston is the fourth-most populous city in the United States after New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and the sixth-most populous city in North America. Houston is the southeast anchor of the greater megaregion known as the Texas Triangle.
For a list of largest cities by area, see List of United States cities by area. This is a list of the most populous incorporated places of the United States. As defined by the United States Census Bureau, an incorporated place includes cities, towns, villages, boroughs, and municipalities.
- New York, New York
- Los Angeles, California
- Chicago, Illinois
- Houston, Texas
- Phoenix, Arizona
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- San Antonio, Texas
- San Diego, California
- Dallas, Texas
- San José, California
Originally, New York was named New Amsterdam by the Dutch who landed in lower Manhattan in 1624. Forty years later, the colony was taken by the British, who named it New York in honor of the Duke of York. This might sound like the final iteration, but it’s not quite. In 1673, the Dutch retook the colony and called it New Orange, which lasted for ju...
Los Angeles, or “The Angels,” has been the city’s official name since 1850 when it first became a US city. The Spanish arrived in what is now Los Angeles in 1769, led by captain Fernando Rivera y Moncanda and father Juan Crespi, the Franciscan priest who accompanied him. In the same year, father Crespi named the river flowing through Southern Calif...
Long before Europeans arrived in the area now known as Chicago, it was inhabited by the Miami and Illinois peoples, so it’s no surprise that the city’s name derives from Native American languages. According to the Chicago Historical Society, it’s believed the name comes from shikaakwa, which means “striped skunk” and is also the name for a type of ...
Houston’s naming history is an easy one to trace. It goes back to Sam Houston, a soldier who fought Mexico in the 1836 Texas Revolution. The land that’s now Houston was sold off the same year after Texas won independence. Sam Houston was named the first president of the Republic of Texas and signed the papers to incorporate the city in 1837. The na...
Formed in 1868, a small colony was established four miles east of modern-day Phoenix called Swillings Mill after the former Confederate soldier, Jack Swilling, who helped found the colony. The name was changed to Helling Mill City, then East Phoenix, before pioneer Phillip Darrell Duppa suggested the name Phoenix. In his view, the town’s name shoul...
The naming of Philadelphia probably won’t be too surprising to people with even a passing familiarity with the city. Famously nicknamed “The City of Brotherly Love,” the name Philadelphia actually means “brotherly love” in Greek. It was named by William Penn, who founded the city and the Province of Pennsylvania.
The Spanish first came to what is now San Antonio in 1691 when it was a camp of the Payaya people. The Spanish established the Mission San Antonio de Valero in 1718, the same mission that would later be known as the Alamo. The area served as a military post under the name San Fernando de Béxar as a county seat of the Republic of Texas until 1837, w...
Before what is now San Diego got its name, the first European name it received was San Miguel because the first European sailor to see the land, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, arrived the day before the feast day of Saint Michael the Archangel in 1542. Sixty years later, explorer Sebastian Vizcaino’s fleet reached San Diego, and he renamed the area after...
Dallas has one of the biggest city name mysteries in the US. The city was named by Presbyterian farmer and lawyer John Neely Bryan in 1841, who founded the area as a trading post to serve both Native Americans and settlers. It’s unclear why he chose the name Dallas, as he left behind no documents or records explaining the decision. According to Wor...
In 1776, Captain Juan Bautista de Anza was asked by the Spanish king to lead settlers from New Spain (an area largely encompassing modern-day Mexico) to northern California to establish missions. Anza went past his target point near Monterey and, in 1777, founded El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe, the first town in the Spanish-owned Nueva Californ...
- Eben Diskin
Sep 21, 2022 · We know that Houston is the 4th largest city in the U.S., but in what ways is Houston big other than in size and population? And how does Houston’s size affect its residents directly and indirectly?
Jun 9, 2023 · Houston is the fourth most populous U.S. city, and saw the ninth largest numeric population gain of any U.S. city in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's latest findings. From July 2021 to July 2022, Houston added 11,223 new residents, bringing its total population to 2,302,878.
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Dec 8, 2022 · A new report is reinforcing why Houston is a great global city after it ranked No. 42 globally, beating Dallas and Austin, and ranked No. 1 in Texas.
