About Austin
Austin, located in Central Texas serves as the state capital and county seat of Travis County. With a population of 799,446 as of the 2011 US Census estimate, Austin is now the 4th largest city in Texas and the 12th largest city in the United States. The metro area known as the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX market is home to 1,896,291 at last count by the US Census in 2010, making it the 32nd most populous area in the country.
The city was originally settled in the 1830’s under the name “Waterloo” and was designated as the capital of the Republic of Texas in 1839. The city was re-named to Austin in honor of Stephen F. Austin who is considered the father of Texas.
The city grew rapidly until the Great Depression. Austin re-emerged as a technology and business center in the 1980’s and has more than doubled in population since.
Numerous large corporations are headquartered in Austin or have significant operations in the area such as Whole Foods Grocery Store as well as high-tech companies like AMD, Freescale Semiconductors, Athlon, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, IBM, Oracle, ebay/paypal, Forestar Group, Apple, Intel, Qualcomm, Synopsis and Texas Instruments.
Austin is becoming known as the live music capital of the world due to the high concentration of local musicians that live in the area. The cultural movement has brought on the TV show ‘Austin City Limits’ and more recently the South by Southwest Music Festival which features over 2,000 live performances at 90 venues in downtown Austin. The SXSW Festival is one of the largest in the United States and continues to grow in popularity.
Despite the presence of large high-tech corporations, the city has an eclectic population that is unique to the area. Those that live in the Austin area are traditionally more liberal and progressive than the rest of Texas. The lifestyles of the people of Austin vary greatly from corporate executives, government workers, professors at the University of Texas and small and independent business owners and employees.
Austin is the only known city in the world to still have working Moonlight Towers. The 165 foot towers provide light throughout the city at night. 14 towers still remain in service of the 31 originally installed in the 1890’s. In 1970, the towers became a Texas Historical Landmark. The towers were taken apart and completely restored in 2003 and returned to service in 2005.
Nearby Cities & Towns
Austin, Round Rock, San Marcos, Anderson Mill, Georgetown, Liberty Hill, Bartlett, Pflugerville, Manor, Lost Creek, Dripping Springs, Marble Falls, Buda, Kyle, Lockhart, Elgin, Taylor, Hudson Bend, Cedar Park, Wyldwood, Bustrop, Redwood, Bertram, Burnet, Temple, Belton, Kileen, Salado, Jarrell, Florence
