Houston Metro Area

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The City of Houston has a long history starting in 1837.  Known as the Bayou City, and now the third largest metropolitan city in the country.  Houston is still growing and bringing more jobs and industry each year.  Great news because we have an amazing rich city of diverse people from all around the world.  Learn more with the link below.

The City of Houston is vast in the size of land and the metropolitan Houston area is more expansive when considering it covers 5 counties, and over 6 million people as of 2022 (Macrotrends.net).    According to Macrotrends.net about 100,000 people move to Houston area each year.  As you can see from both maps, the city has grown a lot over the last 185 plus years.  On this page I will identify all the different parts of town then direct you to the drop down menu so that you can visit those websites to learn more about those areas of Houston.

 This amazing city of course has an outstanding Downtown District which consist of ten different districts, including our second to none Theater District, the Historic District, Avendia District, Shopping District, Civic District, Skyline District, Southern District, Warehouse District, East End District, and World Series Ball Park District.   

As the city has grown from it's original grounds of Downtown Houston, city officials in 1931 began to talk about a highway system that made life easier to get around this expanding city.  Talks began to pick up steam again around WWII, when it was purposed as a way to transport troops from one end of the city to the other.  At first there was only the North Loop, designated as the "Defense Loop".  Construction was delayed until the 1950's when the West and South portion were added, then in the East portion being added in 1960 completely THE LOOP.  The loop is 38 miles which goes all the way around Houston.  Downtown is of course inside the Loop, but that has a separate tab.  Inside the Loop is sectioned off into the following: Central Inner Loop, Northwest Inner Loop, East End, and South Loop.

This City is so large it actually has two more loops that go around all of Houston.  Beltway 8, got it's name in 1969, way before it became a toll road.  Construction of the toll road began in the early 1980's, and is considered our second loop that runs 88 miles around.  This part of the city is broken up into 8 sections: North Houston, Northwest, Northeast, South, Southeast, Southwest, East and West.  Here you'll find cities within the city or small towns or villages like on the West side of town.

The next loop to be created is the Grand Parkway aka 99 Loop, which is also a toll road.  Construction first began in 1994, and is still ongoing as you can see from the picture above.  When completed 99 will connected the majority of the Houston Metro area together crossing over, Fort Bend County, Montgomery County, Liberty County, Chambers County, Galveston County, and Brazoria County.  The Grand Parkway when completed it will be the longest beltway in the United States.