History UsefulNotes / OtherCitiesInTexas

Another smaller city, located almost a hundred miles north-west of the UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex, and definitely more of a "passing-through" town. Home to "The World's Smallest Skyscraper", (the result of a technicality/loophole on the blueprints for the building) and the Hotter'N Hell Hundred, a world-famous 100-mile bicycling race and ride[[note]]The event includes several professional races, one of them 100 miles, but the vast majority of participants are involved in one of several non-competitive rides, the longest of which is 100 miles.[[/note]] taking place in the middle of the summer, when temperatures sit at above 100 degrees Fahrenheit ''daily''. Wichita Falls is also the childhood home of Mia Hamm (who attended Notre Dame Catholic Academy, a fact the school will remind you of constantly), the music band Music/BowlingForSoup, Phil [=McGraw=] (aka Series/DoctorPhil), wrestler Wrestling/KeithLee, and World Series-winning [[UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueBaseball Boston Red Sox pitcher]] Ryan Brazier. Wichita Falls is home to Midwestern State University ("Texas' liberal arts university"), an extension of a college from a neighboring city (Vernon College), and one of three Air Force bases in Texas (this being Sheppard, the others being Lackland in San Antonio and Dyess in Abilene) that all aspiring pilots are required to attend. Sometimes included with the Metroplex, despite not technically being included according to the feds and being so far away.

At the turn of UsefulNotes/TheNewTens, Wichita Falls gained a reputation of being a WeirdnessMagnet. During the 2011-2015 drought, Wichita Falls became known as the town that recycled toilet water, thanks to Creator/JimmyFallon sharing it on [[Series/TheTonightShowStarringJimmyFallon his late show.]] A few years later, the town became known nationally once again for a woman attempting to hide wine in a Pringles can.

In its original form in the late 1800s, the town was a WretchedHive of saloons and bordellos for the soldiers across the river at Fort Concho to enjoy. That changed in 1882 when San Angelo had to clean up its act and become county seat after the original county seat was destroyed in a flood. Today, though it's a modern city, San Angelo pretty much flies under the radar, though it did come into some slight national prominence a few years ago during the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YFZ_Ranch#April_2008_raid 2008 YFZ Ranch raid]], as many of the associated criminal trials took place in San Angelo.

Home to [[Series/{{Heroes}} Claire Bennet]] and the [[Film/FridayNightLights Permian High School Panthers]] (not to be confused with the ''[[Series/FridayNightLights Dillon]]'' [[Series/FridayNightLights High School Panthers]]) and was also the boyhood home of UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush. Their economy is driven by the oil industry, so it follows the oil booms and busts. As such, they were hit hard during the 1980s, when the easily-accessible oil started to get tapped out, but in recent years they have have had a resurgence, with new finds and drilling techniques leading to more oil production, as well as the development of natural gas and wind energy. This has produced a vastly expanding economy and an exploding population in both cities. The downside of this is that the housing market is through the roof, with individuals with high-paying jobs barely able to keep a roof over their heads. In addition, the traffic has substantially increased on roads that were not intended to handle that amount. From 2012 to 2013, traffic fatalities increased over 300%. On top of that, the region is currently in a severe drought, so more people puts additional strain on nearly depleted reservoirs. Odessa itself has the dubious honor of being [[http://www.mrt.com/news/article/Odessa-named-most-dangerous-city-in-Texas-7399052.php the most dangerous city in Texas]] and has twice ranked as ''[[WretchedHive the murder capital of America]]''[[note]] ranked as 'murders per capita' once in 1983 and again in 2014, both during the peak oil booms of their respective generations[[/note]]. Odessa's [[Film/FridayNightLights Permian High School]] also has the unsavory nickname of [[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Permian%20High%20School "Predator High"]] due to the number of StudentTeacherRomance scandals in recent years.

Nearby Luckenbach (population 3), which was once also a rural German settlement, is notable today as a tiny (but popular) CountryMusic venue. Outlaw country singer Jerry Jeff Walker's live album ''¡Viva Terlingua!'' was recorded here, and the town got a very famous ShoutOut in the popular Music/WaylonJennings song "Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)."[[note]]Funnily enough, neither Jennings nor the song's writers had ever been to Luckenbach, although Jennings later played a concert there in 1997.[[/note]] It consists of a general store selling souvenirs, the dance hall, and not much else, but is a nice little destination for country fans and native Texans alike.

Speaking of Sweetwater, this smaller town shows up from time to time in media as a stereotypical Old West town, mostly due to its distinctive name.[[note]]Which is named for the area's water sources, but was derived from the Kiowa name for the region, "Mobeetie," which translates to "sweet water."[[/note]] Nowadays, it's best known for its annual rattlesnake roundup, and for the [[Literature/QuidditchThroughTheAges 1993 Sweetwater All-Stars]]. In professional wrestling, it's also known as the hometown of [[Wrestling/JohnBradshawLayfield John Layfield]] and Wrestling/BarryWindham (not to mention Barry's brother Kendall and their father Robert, the latter better known as Blackjack Mulligan). Layfield also has connections to Abilene, having played [[UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootball college football]] at Abilene Christian.

Two cities adjoining one another, located around 100 miles from both Houston and Austin. Bryan was historically larger, but College Station caught up just before the turn of the century and is now noticeably larger. College Station is home to Texas A&M University, the Aggies, and the George Bush Presidential Library[[note]][[UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush Papa Bush]], not "Dubya".[[/note]], which has a statue of horses leaping over a real chunk of the Berlin Wall, depicting the fall of the wall when Bush was President.

However, El Paso's unique character, history, and location have led to it becoming more regularly featured in recent years. In sports, it's Wrestling/EddieGuerrero's hometown and also home to the University of Texas at El Paso, most famous for being home to the 1966 NCAA basketball championship team (back when the school was Texas Western College). They were a little known team famous for defeating the all-white Kentucky with the first all-black staring line up in NCAA history. This "Cinderella story" was famously depicted in the film ''Film/GloryRoad'' and made them the first (and for several years only) college men's team to ever be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.[[note]]Three other pioneering college teams, two women's and one men's, later had series of teams inducted as units. The first was Immaculata, out of Philadelphia's Main Line suburbs, whose early-1970s women's teams got in. The two most recent, both entering in 2019, include one Texas school. Wayland Baptist, from the Panhandle town of Plainview, saw its 1948–82 women's teams get in, alongside the 1957–59 men's teams from Tennessee A&I (now Tennessee State), a historically black school out of Nashville.[[/note]] In fiction, The Jaime Reyes version of the ComicBook/BlueBeetle is based here, a rarity for Creator/DCComics (who tend to base their superheroes in fictional cities). The R&B artist Music/{{Khalid}} spent much of his youth in the city and regularly mentions it in his music. Noted animator Creator/DonBluth also hails from El Paso. Music/MartyRobbins' 1959 smash "El Paso" became his [[invoked]] SignatureSong.

Famous border town across the Rio Grande from [[WretchedHive the drug-war-torn city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas]]. The southern terminus of Interstate 35, which runs all the way to Duluth, Minnesota. A major hub of transportation and shipping.

In rough west-to-east order: Mission, [=McAllen=], Edinburg, Pharr, Weslaco, Harlingen, and Brownsville. A major agricultural and manufacturing center and gateway to both Spring Break mecca South Padre Island and the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The Valley is the third largest producer of citrus fruit in America behind California and Florida. Despite the name, it's actually a flat, swampy floodplain. Birthplace of football coach Tom Landry, [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Iwo Jima flag raiser]] [[SemperFi Harlon Block]], musician Freddy Fender, [[TheOtherDarrin replacement John Connor]] Nick Stahl, and wrestler Wrestling/TitoSantana.

Another smaller city, located almost a hundred miles north-west of the UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex, and definitely more of a "passing-through" town. Home to "The World's Smallest Skyscraper", (the result of a technicality/loophole on the blueprints for the building) and the Hotter'N Hell Hundred, a world-famous 100-mile bicycling race and ride[[note]]The event includes several professional races, one of them 100 miles, but the vast majority of participants are involved in one of several non-competitive rides, the longest of which is 100 miles.[[/note]] taking place in the middle of the summer, when temperatures sit at above 100 degrees Fahrenheit ''daily''. Wichita Falls is also the childhood home of Mia Hamm (who attended Notre Dame Catholic Academy, a fact the school will remind you of constantly), the music band Music/BowlingForSoup, Phil [=McGraw=] (aka Series/DoctorPhil), wrestler Wrestling/KeithLee, and World Series-winning [[UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueBaseball Boston Red Sox pitcher]] Ryan Brazier. Wichita Falls is home to Midwestern State University ("Texas' liberal arts university"), an extension of a college from a neighboring city (Vernon College), and one of three Air Force bases in Texas (this being Sheppard, the others being Lackland in San Antonio, and Dyess in Abilene) that all aspiring pilots are required to attend. Sometimes included with the Metroplex, despite not technically being included according to the feds and being so far away.

Another smaller city, located almost a hundred miles north-west of the UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex, and definitely more of a "passing-through" town. Home to "The World's Smallest Skyscraper", (the result of a technicality/loophole on the blueprints for the building) and the Hotter'N Hell Hundred, a world-famous 100-mile bicycling race and ride[[note]]The event includes several professional races, one of them 100 miles, but the vast majority of participants are involved in one of several non-competitive rides, the longest of which is 100 miles.[[/note]] taking place in the middle of the summer, when temperatures sit at above 100 degrees Fahrenheit ''daily''. Wichita Falls is also the childhood home of Mia Hamm (who attended Notre Dame Catholic Academy, a fact the school will remind you of constantly), the music band Music/BowlingForSoup, Phil [=McGraw=] (aka Series/DoctorPhil), and World Series-winning [[UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueBaseball Boston Red Sox pitcher]] Ryan Brazier. Wichita Falls is home to Midwestern State University ("Texas' liberal arts university"), an extension of a college from a neighboring city (Vernon College), and one of three Air Force bases in Texas (this being Sheppard, the others being Lackland in San Antonio, and Dyess in Abilene) that all aspiring pilots are required to attend. Sometimes included with the Metroplex, despite not technically being included according to the feds and being so far away.

However, El Paso's unique character, history, and location have led to it becoming more regularly featured in recent years. In sports, it's Wrestling/EddieGuerrero's hometown and also home to the University of Texas at El Paso, most famous for being home to the 1966 NCAA basketball championship team (back when the school was Texas Western College). They were a little known team famous for defeating the all-white Kentucky with the first all-black staring line up in NCAA history. This "Cinderella story" was famously depicted in the film ''Film/GloryRoad'' and made them the first (and for several years only) college men's team to ever be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.[[note]]Three other pioneering college teams, two women's and one men's, later had series of teams inducted as units. The first was Immaculata, out of Philadelphia's Main Line suburbs, whose early-1970s women's teams got in. The two most recent, both entering in 2019, include one Texas school. Wayland Baptist, from the Panhandle town of Plainview, saw its 1948–82 women's teams get in, alongside the 1957–59 men's teams from Tennessee A&I (now Tennessee State), a historically black school out of Nashville.[[/note]] In fiction, The Jaime Reyes version of the ComicBook/BlueBeetle is based here, a rarity for Creator/DCComics (who tend to base their superheroes in fictional cities). The R&B artist Music/{{Khalid}} spent much of his youth in the city and regularly mentions it in his music. Noted animator Creator/DonBluth also hails from El Paso. Music/MartyRobbins' 1959 smash "El PAso" became his [[invoked]] SignatureSong.

However, El Paso's unique character, history, and location have led to it becoming more regularly featured in recent years. In sports, it's Wrestling/EddieGuerrero's hometown and also home to the University of Texas at El Paso, most famous for being home to the 1966 NCAA basketball championship team (back when the school was Texas Western College). They were a little known team famous for defeating the all-white Kentucky with the first all-black staring line up in NCAA history. This "Cinderella story" was famously depicted in the film ''Film/GloryRoad'' and made them the first (and for several years only) college men's team to ever be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.[[note]]Three other pioneering college teams, two women's and one men's, later had series of teams inducted as units. The first was Immaculata, out of Philadelphia's Main Line suburbs, whose early-1970s women's teams got in. The two most recent, both entering in 2019, include one Texas school. Wayland Baptist, from the Panhandle town of Plainview, saw its 1948–82 women's teams get in, alongside the 1957–59 men's teams from Tennessee A&I (now Tennessee State), a historically black school out of Nashville.[[/note]] In fiction, The Jaime Reyes version of the ComicBook/BlueBeetle is based here, a rarity for DC Comics (who tend to base their superheroes in fictional cities). The R&B artist Music/{{Khalid}} spent much of his youth in the city and regularly mentions it in his music.

Oceanfront resort town located on a narrow island about forty miles south of Houston. It was once one of the largest cities in Texas, and one of the busiest ports on the Gulf of Mexico, until it was destroyed in 1900 by a hurricane four times as destructive as Katrina. Although the city was rebuilt, development shifted north to Houston, Southeast Texas' economy shifted from cotton to oil, and the city never really recovered its former glory. It later became a Mafia-controlled ViceCity from 1920 to 1957, when it lost the title to UsefulNotes/LasVegas. The city is now known, in Texas at least, for being chock full of honestly nice people.

Texas is a ''big'' state. No seriously, [[EverythingIsBigInTexas it's really big]], so big that the city of El Paso is closer to Los Angeles, CA, ''three states away'' than it is to Shreveport, LA, which is right on the Texas border in the other direction. We're talking a state that is larger than several European nations on its own. [[https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/how-big-is-texas-compared-to-other-land-masses/ Seriously.]] So big, in fact, that it has several cities with very large populations, none of which are within 50 miles (80 km) of each other, some of which get mentioned in fiction.

Oceanfront resort town located on a narrow island about forty miles south of Houston. It was once one of the largest cities in Texas, and one of the busiest ports on the Gulf of Mexico, until it was destroyed by a hurricane in 1900 four times as destructive as Katrina. Although the city was rebuilt, development shifted north to Houston and Southeast Texas' economy shifted from cotton to oil and the city never really recovered its former glory. It later became a Mafia-controlled ViceCity from 1920 to 1957, when it lost the title to UsefulNotes/LasVegas. The city is now known, in Texas at least, for being chock full of honestly nice people.

Texas's second-largest single city as of the 2010 Census (passing Dallas) and the seventh-largest in the US with 1.5 million people calling it home (though the metropolitan area is quite a bit further down the list). It's billed as Texas's premier tourist destination--there's Six Flags Fiesta Texas, Sea World, the Riverwalk, several Spanish missions, New Braunfels just up the road, and of course, [[RememberTheAlamo the Alamo]][[note]]What surprises most tourists about the Alamo usually winds up being either the fact that it's right in the middle of downtown - seriously, it's right across from a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum, a wax museum, and a Häagen-Dazs, and it's literally possible to walk out of the Riverwalk Mall and accidentally stumble across it, or that the shrine (the proper name for the Alamo itself; the Alamo is used officially to refer to the compound with several other buildings inside of it) is a lot smaller than most people would imagine. [[Film/PeeweesBigAdventure It also has no basement.]][[/note]].

Seaport city, and hometown of the [[PlaysGreatEthnics ever multiracial]] Lou Diamond Phillips (bet you didn't know he was Asian). Also notable for its significant Mexican-American population, and for being the hometown of slain Tejano singer {{Music/Selena}}. Home to a branch campus of the aforementioned Texas A&M.

Texas's answer to [[DemotedToExtra Sacchin]] -- it rarely gets mentioned in fiction, probably due in part to its isolation (at least from anything American; the closest major non-Mexican city is UsefulNotes/{{Albuquerque}}, with Houston, Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio all 8-10 hours away by car). El Paso is in the Mountain Time Zone, while the rest of Texas keeps Central Time. It's a very large city that's right across the border from the even bigger [[WretchedHive Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico]], known to anybody who reads/watches the news as one of ''the'' most violent cities on earth due to all those drug cartels fighting for control of cross-border smuggling channels. For what it's worth, crime rates in El Paso itself do not seem to be too far above the norm for an American city its size; if anything, reports suggest that crime (violent crime especially) is unusually low in El Paso. In addition to its geographical isolation, it also has a noticeable lack of suburbs (Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth have a ton of suburbs, and Austin and San Antonio are very close to each other). Wrestling/EddieGuerrero's hometown. Also home to the University of Texas at El Paso, most famous for being home to the 1966 NCAA basketball championship team (back when the school was Texas Western College). They were a little known team famous for defeating the all-white Kentucky with the first all-black staring line up in NCAA history. This "Cinderella story" was famously depicted in the film ''Film/GloryRoad'' and made them the first (and for several years only) college men's team to ever be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.[[note]]Three other pioneering college teams, two women's and one men's, later had series of teams inducted as units. The first was Immaculata, out of Philadelphia's Main Line suburbs, whose early-1970s women's teams got in. The two most recent, both entering in 2019, include one Texas school. Wayland Baptist, from the Panhandle town of Plainview, saw its 1948–82 women's teams get in, alongside the 1957–59 men's teams from Tennessee A&I (now Tennessee State), a historically black school out of Nashville.[[/note]] The Jaime Reyes version of the ComicBook/BlueBeetle is based here, a rarity for DC Comics (who tend to base their superheroes in fictional cities).

Oceanfront resort town located on a narrow island about forty miles south of Houston. It was once one of the largest cities in Texas, and one of the busiest ports on the Gulf of Mexico, until it was destroyed by a hurricane in 1900 four times as destructive as Katrina. Although the city was rebuilt, development shifted north to Houston and Southeast Texas' economy shifted from cotton to oil and the city never really recovered its former glory. It later became a Mafia controlled ViceCity from 1920 to 1957, when it lost the title to UsefulNotes/LasVegas. The city is also known, in Texas at least, for being chock full of honestly nice people.

In rough west-to-east order: Mission, [=McAllen=], Edinburg, Pharr, Weslaco, Harlingen, and Brownsville. A major agricultural center and gateway to both Spring Break mecca South Padre Island and the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The Valley is the third largest producer of citrus fruit in America behind California and Florida. Despite the name, it's actually a flat, swampy floodplain. Birthplace of football coach Tom Landry, [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Iwo Jima flag raiser]] [[SemperFi Harlon Block]], musician Freddy Fender, [[TheOtherDarrin replacement John Connor]] Nick Stahl, and wrestler Wrestling/TitoSantana.

Texas's second-largest single city as of the 2010 Census (passing Dallas), and the seventh-largest in the US, though the metropolitan area is much further down the list. It's billed as Texas's premier tourist destination — there's Six Flags Fiesta Texas, Sea World, the Riverwalk, several Spanish missions, New Braunfels just up the road, and of course, [[RememberTheAlamo the Alamo]][[note]]What surprises most tourists about the Alamo usually winds up being either the fact that it's right in the middle of downtown - seriously, it's right across from a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum, a wax museum, and a Häagen-Dazs, and it's literally possible to walk out of the Riverwalk Mall and accidentally stumble across it, or that the shrine (the proper name for the Alamo itself; the Alamo is used officially to refer to the compound with several other buildings inside of it) is a lot smaller than most people would imagine. [[Film/PeeweesBigAdventure It also has no basement.]][[/note]]. It also is — or was at one point — considered the sweatiest city in the US. Historically speaking, there's still quite a bit of Mexican influence in the town. San Antonio also has a huge military presence - at one point it was the home of four Air Force bases (Lackland and Randolph are still active, Brooks has been closed and Kelly was absorbed into Lackland) and an army post (Fort Sam Houston). If you were in the Air Force and not an officer, you very likely started out at Lackland. Also notable for the San Antonio Spurs, who generally put up a good team year in and year out, and for being the home of Wrestling/ShawnMichaels, Creator/MichelleRodriguez, [[Music/DyingFetus Kevin Talley]], Creator/SummerGlau, Creator/ShaquilleONeal (in high school) and if you count people conceived in San Antonio, Music/MarilynManson - which makes it ten times more awesome. The city is located about eighty miles (roughly an hour and a half driving time depending on traffic) southwest of Austin, meaning that the two cities are sometimes conflated together — and between San Antonio's tourist spots and Austin's, well, [[BuffySpeak Austin-ness]], it makes life a lot easier for tourists looking to go to a lot of Texas' big attractions.

A small city located roughly halfway between Dallas and Austin on I-35 in the middle of the "Texas Triangle" between [[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex Dallas]], UsefulNotes/{{Houston}}, and Austin/San Antonio, this town has had... a rough history, to say the least. In 1916, a black man named Jesse Washington was accused of raping and murdering a white woman, tried and convicted in a [[KangarooCourt trial that lasted all of one hour]], and was subsequently ''hung, castrated, and burned alive for two hours'' in front of the Town Hall. People took pictures and sold pieces of his charred corpse as souvenirs during and immediately after his death; the public images outraged most of the United States. In 1953, Waco was destroyed by the eleventh-deadliest tornado in US history (with a death toll of 114[[note]]tied with the tornado that hit another Texas town, Goliad, in 1902[[/note]]), which stalled its economic growth while cities of similar size like Austin boomed. Forty years later, it was doomed to have its name forever associated with the name of David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, a group of disfellowshipped members of disfellowshipped members of the Seventh-Day Adventists (long story) who got into an armed standoff with the ATF and FBI at their compound right outside the city at Mount Carmel[[note]]The compound and the Branch Davidians still exist to this day, however finding it is rather hard, as there aren't clear markings/signs around the city to locate it, it's difficult to identify thanks to a series of fires destroying some of the remaining compound buildings in the late 90's, and for obvious reasons, the surviving Davidians aren't fond of outsiders poking around the area.[[/note]], making the word "Waco" a rallying cry for {{Right Wing Militia Fanatic}}s for years; the raid was noted as being the reason why Oklahoma City bomber Timothy [=McVeigh=] would plot his attack on the Murrah Building (intentionally carried out on the second anniversary of the siege). Poor town. Also, regardless of one's views on the man, UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush's "ranch", the "Western White House", is located a couple dozen miles outside the city. On the positive side, Creator/SteveMartin's from here, and Baylor University, established in 1845, has claimed the title of being the oldest continuously operating university in the state of Texas. (They've had a rough history, too, most recently with a sex scandal.) The HGTV series ''Series/FixerUpper'' is based here as well.

Made a direct appearance on an episode of ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', when Hank and Bobby visited to watch the Dallas Cowboys training camp, as the Cowboys really did have their annual training camp in the town until around 2002. Less known is the time Creator/BilliePiper wore a shirt from the city while filming the Series/DoctorWho episode [[DoctorWhoS28E4TheGirlInTheFireplace "The Girl in the Fireplace"]].

Texas is a ''big'' state. No seriously, [[EverythingIsBigInTexas it's really big]]. Texas is so big that the city of El Paso is closer to Los Angeles CA three states away than it is to Shreveport LA, which is right on the Texas border in the other direction. We're talking a state that is larger than several European nations on its own. [[https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/how-big-is-texas-compared-to-other-land-masses/ No, seriously.]] So big, in fact, that there are several cities with very large populations, none of which are within 50 miles (80 km) of each other, some of which get mentioned in fiction.

Texas is so big that back in the 1950s through the 1970s when it was nearly impossible to get a license to operate an airline at the Federal level (the major airlines already in business did not want new competitors), there were several smaller airlines which managed to make enough money to operate by serving cities within the state of Texas, which meant they did not need a federal license. After the government deregulated the airline industry in the late 70s, one of those carriers, Southwest Airlines, began expanding outside the state, and now carries more domestic passengers than any other U.S. airline. California was the only other state big enough to have successful intrastate airlines.

The capital of Texas. Home of the University of Texas (or texas university to the Aggies[[note]]who refuse to even capitalize it[[/note]]), which is the state's largest in terms of enrollment, as well as a traditional powerhouse in all of the Big Three sports (American football, basketball, baseball; although nationally it's most known for the former).

Primarily due to the presence of the university, Austin is famous for being a notorious pocket of liberalism and counterculture in what is otherwise still a fairly conservative (but rapidly changing) state; Creator/PattonOswalt referred to it as "a bubble of sanity", while the rest of the state (including Austin itself) calls it the People's Republic of Austin with either derision or SelfDeprecation.

This actually sums up Austin quite well; it's a city of contradictions and quirks. A progressive city with conservative roots, a hub for cutting edge research with a thriving art and culture scene, a thriving local economy operating side by side with international corporations.

For starters, it's well known for [[QuirkyTown all kinds of colorful characters]]. For instance, the late Leslie Cochran, who had become something of a beloved city mascot toward the end of his life. While many cities have flamboyant transvestites who run for mayor from a public shelter, in few cities do said individuals have a well-reasoned campaign platform[[note]]Typically he focused local business and culture, LGBT rights, and the rights of the homeless, for those interested[[/note]]; have a fully staffed volunteer campaign team with a respectable budget; participate seriously in public debates; and receive a small but noteworthy percentage of the city's votes in each of several mayoral campaigns.

Austin is also notable for its rapid growth; highly unusual for a state capitol. Since 1940, its population has been increasing by roughly 40% every decade, and it has grown from a fairly modest government/college town to one of the largest Cities in the United States; the 11th largest as of 2013.

This leads to another notable part of the city: traffic. In terms of "most-congested traffic", Austin ranks [[http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/blog/morning_call/2014/06/austin-traffic-ranks-among-worst-in-america-report.html 16th in the United States, and 25th in the Western Hemisphere]]. If there's such a thing as a city-wide BerserkButton, traffic can definitely be considered one for Austin. Biking has become popular not merely for health reasons, but because it is sometimes faster to bike somewhere than to ''drive'' there.

There are a number of festivals and events for just about anything in Austin year-round. Kite Festival? Check. Hot Sauce Festival? Yep. Bat Fest?[[note]]Austin has several large bat colonies living under bridges and overpasses[[/note]] Oh yeah. You name it, and Austin is very likely to celebrate it.

The city is also home to many musicians, actors/actresses, and political figures, both mainstream and underground, and the two frequently intermingle.

A related claim to fame is that the city is known as the "Live Music Capital of the World". Describing Austin's live music scene as "massive" would be an understatement: it's possible to walk around several blocks downtown on any given night, and find at least four bands/artists of four different genres playing in four different clubs at the same time- on weekend evenings, it's hard to find a restaurant, pub, bar, or club that doesn't have some sort of live performance going on. As previously mentioned, Austin is a place where the mainstream and underground mix, and the music scene is no exception. A number of bars have become especially known as places for huge name acts to get back to their roots- it isn't unheard of for groups like {{Music/Coldplay}}, Music/ZZTop, or Music/TheRollingStones to drop into a sixth street bar for a one night performance with little to no fanfare. The Austin music scene spans several genres, from country to blues to electronica to indie rock. Some of the best known acts to hail from the city include The 13th Floor Elevators, Music/DanielJohnston, Music/{{Spoon}}, Music/ExplosionsInTheSky, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Gary Clark Jr., and Townes Van Zandt.

This is further augmented by multiple annual music festivals, including but not limited to Austin City Limits, Fun Fun Fun Fest, and Chaos in Tejas. The biggest of all, however, is South By Southwest (or more simply, SXSW; locals typically refer to it as "South By"). This massive annual music festival shuts down several parts of the city for the duration, and parts of the rest become next to impossible to navigate for days on end thanks to the pedestrian and auto traffic. City officials and local businesses are more than happy to put up with this, however, thanks to the amount of money it brings into the city: unless you're attending free shows or hitting up the back of the line hoping to get into shows where people with badges/wristbands have priority, you're going to be shelling out hundreds of dollars for the badge alone. If you can't find a couch to crash on, good luck - almost all area hotels sell out ''months'' in advance, and places just outside of city limits jack up the prices...a lot.

Austin also has a thriving business side. Organic supermarket chain Whole Foods Market may be one of the quintessential emblems of Austin: what started here as that grocery store where you could get the "hippy" vegetables like kale has become an international corporation (and now part of Creator/{{Amazon}}) without quite ever changing its basic premise. A host of high-tech companies such as Dell, 3M, and Google have sites in Austin, making it something of Texas' Silicon Valley -- Austin and the surrounding area are sometimes referred to as "Silicon Hills".

Texas's second-largest single city as of the 2010 Census (passing Dallas), and the seventh-largest in the US, though the metropolitan area is much further down the list. It's billed as Texas's premier tourist destination — there's Six Flags Fiesta Texas, Sea World, the Riverwalk, several Spanish missions, New Braunfels just up the road, and of course, [[RememberTheAlamo the Alamo]][[note]]What surprises most tourists about the Alamo usually winds up being either the fact that it's right in the middle of downtown - seriously, it's right across from a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum, a wax museum, and a Häagen-Dazs, and it's literally possible to walk out of the Riverwalk Mall and accidentally stumble across it, or that the shrine (the proper name for the Alamo itself; the Alamo is used officially to refer to the compound with several other buildings inside of it) is a lot smaller than most people would imagine. [[Film/PeeweesBigAdventure It also has no basement.]][[/note]]. It also is — or was at one point — considered the sweatiest city in the US. Historically speaking, there's still quite a bit of Mexican influence in the town. San Antonio also has a huge military presence - at one point it was the home of four Air Force bases (Lackland and Randolph are still active, Brooks has been closed and Kelly was absorbed into Lackland) and an army post (Fort Sam Houston). If you were in the Air Force and not an officer, you very likely started out at Lackland. Also notable for the San Antonio Spurs, who generally put up a good team year in and year out, and for being the home of Wrestling/ShawnMichaels, Creator/MichelleRodriguez, [[Music/DyingFetus Kevin Talley]], Creator/SummerGlau, and if you count people conceived in San Antonio, Music/MarilynManson - which makes it ten times more awesome. The city is located about eighty miles (roughly an hour and a half driving time depending on traffic) southwest of Austin, meaning that the two cities are sometimes conflated together — and between San Antonio's tourist spots and Austin's, well, [[BuffySpeak Austin-ness]], it makes life a lot easier for tourists looking to go to a lot of Texas' big attractions.

Named for a town in Kansas that it has surpassed in population, Abilene is a mid-sized city in the west-central portion of the state. Though somewhat similar to San Angelo (see below), inasmuch as they're both mid-sized college towns with an Air Force base within 90 miles of each other (not far by Texas standards), Abilene is the city equivalent of AlwaysSomeoneBetter -- the population is a little bigger, the city has more universities (three to San Angelo's one), they have a zoo, and they have many chain stores and restaurants that San Angelo lacks.[[note]]In San Angelo, people joked for ''years'' that you had to drive to Abilene to eat at the Olive Garden, until San Angelo finally got its own Olive Garden in 2006. Today, the joke still applies for pretty much everything else.[[/note]] This growth is due largely to the fact that Abilene is located right on Interstate 20, which connects directly to the [[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex DFW Metroplex]] to the east, whereas San Angelo is on its own without an interstate connection. Naturally, this has led to a bit of a friendly rivalry between the two cities, most frequently on display come high school football season[[note]]It also played out in college football for quite some time. Abilene Christian University and Angelo State University both were part of the Lone Star Conference for the longest time in Division 2 ball and had quite the rivalry between them, until ACU moved up to D1 in 2013[[/note]].

Austin also has a thriving business side. Organic supermarket chain Whole Foods Market may be one of the quintessential emblems of Austin: what started here as that grocery store where you could get the "hippy" vegetables like kale has become an international corporation without quite ever changing its basic premise. A host of high-tech companies such as Dell, 3M, and Google have sites in Austin, making it something of Texas's Silicon Valley -- Austin and the surrounding area are sometimes referred to as "Silicon Hills".

Texas's answer to [[DemotedToExtra Sacchin]] -- it rarely gets mentioned in fiction, probably due in part to its isolation (at least from anything American; the closest major non-Mexican city is UsefulNotes/{{Albuquerque}}, with Houston, Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio all 8-10 hours away by car). El Paso is in the Mountain Time Zone, while the rest of Texas keeps Central Time. It's a very large city that's right across the border from the even bigger [[WretchedHive Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico]], known to anybody who reads/watches the news as one of ''the'' most violent cities on earth due to all those drug cartels fighting for control of cross-border smuggling channels. For what it's worth, crime rates in El Paso itself do not seem to be too far above the norm for an American city its size; if anything, reports suggest that crime (violent crime especially) is unusually low in El Paso. In addition to its geographical isolation, it also has a noticeable lack of suburbs (Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth have a ton of suburbs, and Austin and San Antonio are very close to each other). Wrestling/EddieGuerrero's hometown. Also home to the University of Texas at El Paso, most famous for being home to the 1966 NCAA basketball championship team (back when the school was Texas Western College). They were a little known team famous for defeating the all-white Kentucky with the first all-black staring line up in NCAA history. This "Cinderella story" was famously depicted in the film ''Film/GloryRoad'' and made them the first (and for several years only) college men's team to ever be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.[[note]]Three pioneering teams, two women's and one men's, later had series of teams inducted as units. The first was Immaculata, out of Philadelphia's Main Line suburbs, whose early-1970s women's teams got in. The two most recent, both entering in 2019, include one Texas school. Wayland Baptist, from the Panhandle town of Plainview, saw its 1948–82 women's teams get in, alongside the 1957–59 men's teams from Tennessee A&I (now Tennessee State), a historically black school out of Nashville.[[/note]] The Jaime Reyes version of the ComicBook/BlueBeetle is based here, a rarity for DC Comics (who tend to base their superheroes in fictional cities).

Texas's second-largest single city as of the 2010 Census (passing Dallas), and the seventh-largest in the US, though the metropolitan area is much further down the list. It's billed as Texas's premier tourist destination — there's Six Flags Fiesta Texas, Sea World, the Riverwalk, several Spanish missions, new Braunfels just up the road, and of course, [[RememberTheAlamo the Alamo]][[note]]What surprises most tourists about the Alamo usually winds up being either the fact that it's right in the middle of downtown - seriously, it's right across from a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum, a wax museum, and a Häagen-Dazs, and it's literally possible to walk out of the Riverwalk Mall and accidentally stumble across it, or that the shrine (the proper name for the Alamo itself; the Alamo is used officially to refer to the compound with several other buildings inside of it) is a lot smaller than most people would imagine. [[Film/PeeweesBigAdventure It also has no basement.]][[/note]]. It also is — or was at one point — considered the sweatiest city in the US. Historically speaking, there's still quite a bit of Mexican influence in the town. San Antonio also has a huge military presence - at one point it was the home of four Air Force bases (Lackland and Randolph are still active, Brooks has been closed and Kelly was absorbed into Lackland) and an army post (Fort Sam Houston). If you were in the Air Force and not an officer, you very likely started out at Lackland. Also notable for the San Antonio Spurs, who generally put up a good team year in and year out, and for being the home of Wrestling/ShawnMichaels, Creator/MichelleRodriguez, [[Music/DyingFetus Kevin Talley]], Creator/SummerGlau, and if you count people conceived in San Antonio, Music/MarilynManson - which makes it ten times more awesome. The city is located about eighty miles (roughly an hour and a half driving time depending on traffic) southwest of Austin, meaning that the two cities are sometimes conflated together — and between San Antonio's tourist spots and Austin's, well, [[BuffySpeak Austin-ness]], it makes life a lot easier for tourists looking to go to a lot of Texas' big attractions.

Named for the confluence of three states: '''Tex'''as, '''Ark'''ansas, and Louisi'''ana'''. A mostly blue-collar rural town that has a bad reputation for being a criminal hotbed: in the 1946 the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texarkana_Moonlight_Murders still unsolved Texarkana Moonlight Murders]] occurred here; in recent times, lots of drug-trafficking crime and rivalries between white, black, and Hispanic gangs. On the plus side, ragtime musician Scott Joplin and golfer Byron Nelson were both born here.

The largest city in the Texas Panhandle, and also the largest city in an extremely flat, barren stretch of land called the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llano_Estacado Llano Estacado]], or 'Palisade Plains'. It is the birthplace of Music/BuddyHolly, a fact you are likely to be reminded of often if you visit. Home to Texas Tech University. Also home to a very large prairie dog town.

Has something of an inter-city rivalry with the Oklahoma town Lawton about an hour north. The two towns are, in many ways, mirrors of each other, including having a large military presence, and universities that play each other in almost every Division 2 sport. It also, at times, feels like a sort of microcosm of the Oklahoma-Texas rivalry.

Made a direct appearance on an episode of ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', when Hank and Bobby visited to watch the Dallas Cowboys training camp, as the Cowboys really did have their annual training camp in the town until around 2002.

During the 2011-2015 drought, Wichita Falls became known as the town that recycled toilet water, thanks to Creator/JimmyFallon sharing it on [[Series/TheTonightShowStarringJimmyFallon his late show.]] A few years later, the town became known nationally once again for a woman attempting to hide wine in a Pringles can.

During the 2011-2015 drought, Wichita Falls became known as the town that recycled toilet water, thanks to Creator/JimmyFallon sharing it on [[Series/TheTonightShowStarringJimmyFallon his late show.]]

For starters, it's well known for [[CityOfWeirdos all kinds of colorful characters]]. For instance, the late Leslie Cochran, who had become something of a beloved city mascot toward the end of his life. While many cities have flamboyant transvestites who run for mayor from a public shelter, in few cities do said individuals have a well-reasoned campaign platform[[note]]Typically he focused local business and culture, LGBT rights, and the rights of the homeless, for those interested[[/note]]; have a fully staffed volunteer campaign team with a respectable budget; participate seriously in public debates; and receive a small but noteworthy percentage of the city's votes in each of several mayoral campaigns.

This actually sums up Austin quite well; it's a city of contradictions and quirks. A progressive city with conservative roots, a hub for cutting edge research with a thriving art and culture scene, a thriving local economy operating side by side with international coorperations.

A related claim to fame is that the city is known as the "Live Music Capital of the World". Describing Austin's live music scene as "massive" would be an understatement: it's possible to walk around several blocks downtown on any given night, and find at least four bands/artists of four different genres playing in four different clubs at the same time- on weekend evenings, its hard to find a restraunt, pub, bar, or club that doesn't have some sort of live performance going on. As previously mentioned, Austin is a place where the mainstream and underground mix, and the music scene is no exception. A number of bars have become especially known as places for huge name acts to get back to their roots- it isn't unheard of for groups like {{Music/Coldplay}}, Music/ZZTop, or Music/TheRollingStones to drop into a sixth street bar for a one night performance with little to no fanfare. The Austin music scene spans several genres, from country to blues to electronica to indie rock. Some of the best known acts to hail from the city include The 13th Floor Elevators, Music/DanielJohnston, Music/{{Spoon}}, Music/ExplosionsInTheSky, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Gary Clark Jr., and Townes Van Zandt.

Austin also has a thriving business side. Organic supermarket chain Whole Foods Market may be one of the quintissential emblems of Austin: what started here as that grocery store where you could get the "hippy" vegetables like kale has become an international cooperation without quite ever changing its basic premise. A host of high-tech companies such as Dell, 3M, and Google have sites in Austin, making it something of Texas's Silicon Valley -- Austin and the surrounding area are sometimes referred to as "Silicon Hills".

Seaport city, and hometown of the [[PlaysGreatEthnics ever multiracial]] Lou Diamond Phillips (bet you didn't know he was Asian). Also notable for its significant Mexican-American population, and for being the hometown of slain Tejano singer {{Music/Selena}}. Home to a branch campus of the aforementioned Texas A&M

The smaller counterpart to New Braunfels (see below), Fredericksburg shares much of the of the Texas German (or Texasdeutsch) heritage as its larger counterpart, as reflected in the town's architecture, and is also just as active in the trendy San Antonio/Austin tourist scene. UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz is from here, as is a museum about the Pacific War that bears his name. It serves as a gateway to the Hill Country wine scene, and hosts several wineries within the city limits itself.[[note]]Fun fact: open containers of wine or beer are legal to walk around with in Fredericksburg, provided you stick to the Main Street shopping district.[[/note]] And be sure to visit during the early-to-mid summer, when Fredericksburg's famous peaches are in season.

Another smaller city, located almost a hundred miles north-west of the UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex, and definitely more of a "passing-through" town. Home to "The World's Smallest Skyscraper", (the result of a technicality/loophole on the blueprints for the building) and the Hotter'N Hell Hundred, a world-famous 100-mile bicycling race and ride[[note]]The event includes several professional races, one of them 100 miles, but the vast majority of participants are involved in one of several non-competitive rides, the longest of which is 100 miles.[[/note]] taking place in the middle of the summer, when temperatures sit at above 100 degrees Fahrenheit ''daily''. Wichita Falls is also the childhood home of Mia Hamm (who attended Notre Dame Catholic Academy, a fact the school will remind you of constantly), the music band Music/BowlingForSoup, Phil [=McGraw=] (aka Series/DoctorPhil), and World Series-winning [[UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueBaseball Boston Red Sox pitcher]] Ryan Brazier. Wichita Falls is home to Midwestern State University ("Texas' liberal arts university"), an extension of a college from a neighboring city (Vernon College), and one of three air force bases in Texas (this being Sheppard, the others being Lackland in San Antonio, and Dyess in Abilene) that all aspiring pilots are required to attend. Sometimes included with the Metroplex, despite not technically being included according to the feds and being so far away.

Texas's answer to [[DemotedToExtra Sacchin]] -- it rarely gets mentioned in fiction, probably due in part to its isolation (at least from anything American; the closest major non-Mexican city is UsefulNotes/{{Albuquerque}}. Houston, Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio are all 8-10 hours away by car.). El Paso is in the Mountain Time Zone, while the rest of Texas keeps Central Time. It's a very large city that's right across the border from the even bigger [[WretchedHive Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico]], known to anybody who reads/watches the news as one of ''the'' most violent cities on earth due to all those drug cartels fighting for control of cross-border smuggling channels. For what it's worth, crime rates in El Paso itself do not seem to be too far above the norm for an American city its size; if anything, reports suggest that crime (violent crime especially) is unusually low in El Paso. In addition to its geographical isolation, it also has a noticeable lack of suburbs (Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth have a ton of suburbs, and Austin and San Antonio are very close to each other). Wrestling/EddieGuerrero's hometown. Also home to the University of Texas at El Paso, most famous for being home to the 1966 NCAA basketball championship team (back when the school was Texas Western College). They were a little known team famous for defeating the all-white Kentucky with the first all-black staring line up in NCAA history. This "Cinderella story" was famously depicted in the film ''Film/GloryRoad'' and made them the only college men's team to ever be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.[[note]]Two pioneering women's basketball programs later had series of teams inducted as units. The first was Immaculata, out of Philadelphia's Main Line suburbs, whose early-1970s women's teams got in. The second is a Texas school: Wayland Baptist, from the Panhandle town of Plainview, saw its 1948–82 women's teams get in.[[/note]] The Jaime Reyes version of the ComicBook/BlueBeetle is based here, a rarity for DC comics (who tend to base their superheroes in fictional cities).

Another smaller city, located almost a hundred miles north-west of the UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex, and definitely more of a "passing-through" town. Home to "The World's Smallest Skyscraper," (the result of a technicality/loophole on the blueprints for the building) and the Hotter'N Hell Hundred, a world-famous 100-mile bicycling race taking place in the middle of the summer, when temperatures sit at above 100 degrees Fahrenheit ''daily''. Wichita Falls is also the childhood home of Mia Hamm (who attended Notre Dame Catholic Academy, a fact the school will remind you of constantly), the music band Music/BowlingForSoup, Phil [=McGraw=] (aka Series/DoctorPhil), and World Series-winning [[UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueBaseball Boston Red Sox pitcher]] Ryan Brazier. Wichita Falls is home to Midwestern State University ("Texas' liberal arts university"), an extension of a college from a neighboring city (Vernon College), and one of three air force bases in Texas (this being Sheppard, the others being Lackland in San Antonio, and Dyess in Abilene) that all aspiring pilots are required to attend. Sometimes included with the Metroplex, despite not technically being included according to the feds and being so far away.

Combined with Austin's rich creativity-friendly culture, this has led to it becoming especially known as a hotspot for VideoGameCompanies: historically, it has been the home of Creator/OriginSystems, one half of Creator/IonStorm (the other half was in [[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex Dallas]]), and a branch of Creator/LookingGlassStudios (coincidentally, Creator/WarrenSpector had worked at all three). Nowadays, Creator/RetroStudios (known for the ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' and ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryReturns'' series) is based in the city, while a number of other AAA game developers, including Creator/ArkaneStudios, Creator/BioWare, Creator/BlizzardEntertainment, and Creator/ElectronicArts, have branches in Austin that either currently employ or have employed a bunch of Origin, Ion Storm, and Looking Glass veterans.

Combined with Austin's rich creativity-friendly culture, this has led to it becoming especially known as a hotspot for VideoGameCompanies: historically, it has been the home of Creator/OriginSystems, one half of Creator/IonStorm (the other half was in [[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex Dallas]]), and a branch of Creator/LookingGlassStudios (coincidentally, Creator/WarrenSpector had worked at all three). Nowadays, Creator/RetroStudios (known for the ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' and ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryReturns'' series) is based in the city, while a number of other AAA game developers have Austin branches, including Creator/ArkaneStudios, Creator/BioWare, Creator/BlizzardEntertainment, and Creator/ElectronicArts, who among them, either currently employ or have employed a bunch of Origin, Ion Storm, and Looking Glass veterans.

Combined with Austin's rich creativity-friendly culture, this has led to it becoming especially known as a hotspot for VideoGameCompanies: historically, it has been the home of Creator/OriginSystems, one half of Creator/IonStorm (the other half was in [[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex Dallas]]), and a branch of Creator/LookingGlassStudios (coincidentally, Creator/WarrenSpector had orked at all three. Nowadays, Creator/RetroStudios (known for the ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' and ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryReturns'' series) is based in the city, while a number of other AAA game developers have Austin branches, including Creator/ArkaneStudios, Creator/BioWare, Creator/BlizzardEntertainment, and Creator/ElectronicArts, who among them, either currently employ or have employed a bunch of Origin, Ion Storm, and Looking Glass veterans.

Combined with Austin's rich creativity-friendly culture, this has led to it becoming especially known as a hotspot for VideoGameCompanies: historically, it has been the home of Creator/OriginSystems, one half of Creator/IonStorm (the other half was in [[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex Dallas]]), and a branch of Creator/LookingGlassStudios (coincidentally, Creator/WarrenSpector worked at all three). Nowadays, Creator/RetroStudios (known for the ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' and ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryReturns'' series) is based in this city, while a number of other AAA game developers have Austin branches, as well, including Creator/ArkaneStudios, Creator/BioWare, Creator/BlizzardEntertainment, Creator/ElectronicArts, who among them, either currently employ or have employed a bunch of Origin, Ion Storm, and Looking Glass veterans.

Combined with Austin's rich creativity-friendly culture, this has led to it becoming especially known as a hotspot for VideoGame developers: historically, it has been the home of Creator/OriginSystems, one half of Creator/IonStorm (the other half was in Dallas), and a branch of Creator/LookingGlassStudios (coincidentally, Creator/WarrenSpector worked for all three). Nowadays, Creator/RetroStudios (known for the ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' and ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryReturns'' series) is based in this city, while a number of other AAA game developers have Austin branches, as well, including Creator/ArkaneStudios, Creator/BioWare, Creator/BlizzardEntertainment, Creator/ElectronicArts, who among them, either currently employ or have employed a bunch of Origin, Ion Storm, and Looking Glass veterans.

Combined with Austin's rich creativity-friendly culture, this has led to it becoming especially known as a hotspot for VideoGame developers: Creator/RetroStudios (known for the ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' and ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryReturns'' series) is based in this city. A number of other AAA game developers have Austin branches, as well, including such names as Creator/BioWare, Creator/ElectronicArts, and Creator/BlizzardEntertainment.

A related claim to fame is that the city is known as the "Live Music Capital of the World". Describing Austin's live music scene as "massive" would be an understatement: it's possible to walk around several blocks downtown on any given night, and find at least four bands/artists of four different genres playing in four different clubs at the same time- on weekend evenings, its hard to find a restraunt, pub, bar, or club that doesn't have some sort of live performance going on. As previously mentioned, Austin is a place where the mainstream and underground mix, and the music scene is no exception. A number of bars have become especially known as places for huge name acts to get back to their roots- it isn't unheard of for groups like {{Music/Coldplay}}, Music/ZZTop, or Music/TheRollingStones to drop into a sixth street bar for a one night performance with little to no fanfare.

Another smaller city, located almost a hundred miles north-west of the UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex, and definitely more of a "passing-through" town. Home to "The World's Smallest Skyscraper," (the result of a technicality/loophole on the blueprints for the building) and the Hotter'N Hell Hundred, a world-famous 100-mile bicycling race taking place in the middle of the summer, when temperatures sit at above 100 degrees Fahrenheit ''daily''. Wichita Falls is also the childhood home of Mia Hamm (who attended Notre Dame Catholic Academy, a fact the school will remind you of constantly), the music band Music/BowlingForSoup, and Phil [=McGraw=] (aka Series/DoctorPhil). Wichita Falls is home to Midwestern State University ("Texas' liberal arts university"), an extension of a college from a neighboring city (Vernon College), and one of three air force bases in Texas (this being Sheppard, the others being Lackland in San Antonio, and Dyess in Abilene) that all aspiring pilots are required to attend. Sometimes included with the Metroplex, despite not technically being included according to the feds and being so far away.