Austin, Texas

In addition to being the capital of the United States, state of Texas, Austin serves as the seat and major city of Travis County, with sections of the city spreading into neighbouring Hays and Williamson counties as well. Established on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th most populous city in the United States, and the fourth most populous city in Texas. It is the second-most populous state capital city in the United States, after Phoenix, Arizona, and the most populous state capital that is not also the most populous city in the state. Since 2010, it has been one of the fastest-growing big cities in the United States, according to the Census Bureau. Austin is the state capital of Texas, which is the southernmost state capital in the contiguous United States. According to the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, Austin is a "Beta" global city, which means it is developing rapidly.

Austin has a population of 961,855 people as of the 2020 census, an increase from 790,491 people in the 2010 census. With an estimated population of 2,295,303 as of July 1, 2020, Austin–Round Rock metropolitan statistical area, which has had an 84 percent rise in population between the year 2000, the city serves as the cultural and economic heart of the region. There are a number of lakes, rivers, and waterways in this region, which is located in Central Texas within the wider Texas Hill Country. These include Lady Bird Lake and Lake Travis on the Colorado River, as well as Barton Springs, McKinney Falls, and Lake Walter E. Long.

Since the 1990s, Austin has evolved from a city with a strong economic concentration on government and education to becoming a hub for technology and industry. Austin is home to a number of Fortune 500 companies, including 3M, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Amazon, Apple (including its headquarters), Facebook (including its headquarters), Google (including its headquarters), IBM (including its headquarters), Intel (including its headquarters), NXP semiconductors (including its headquarters), Oracle (including its headquarters), Tesla (including its headquarters), and Whole Foods Market (which has its headquarters in Austin). Around the corner in the surrounding neighbourhood of Round Rock, you'll find Dell's global headquarters. In terms of higher education, Austin is the home to the University of Texas at Austin, which is one of the biggest institutions in the United States, with more than 50,000 students enrolled each semester.