346 Area Code 🌍☎️

Houston is the fourth-most populous city in the United States with 2.3 million residents as of the 2020 census, located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and serving as the county seat of Harris County. Founded on August 30, 1836, at the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and White Oak Bayou by land investors and named after General Sam Houston, the city briefly served as the capital of the Texas Republic before growing into a major regional trading center. Houston's 20th-century growth was driven by the development of its port and railroad industry, the construction of the Houston Ship Channel following Galveston's devastating 1900 hurricane, and the Texas oil boom, which later diversified to include the world's largest concentration of healthcare and research institutions at the Texas Medical Center and NASA's Johnson Space Center. With a diverse economy spanning energy, manufacturing, aeronautics, and transportation, Houston hosts the second-most Fortune 500 headquarters of any U.S. city and operates the nation's top port in international waterborne tonnage. Known as the "Bayou City," "Space City," and the most racially and ethnically diverse major city in the United States, Houston has become a global center for culture, medicine, and research. Baytown is a city in Harris and Chambers counties within the Greater Houston metropolitan area, located 26 miles east of Houston on Galveston Bay near the San Jacinto River and Buffalo Bayou, with a population of 83,701 at the 2020 census and an estimated 84,324 in 2022. Originally three separate towns - Goose Creek (named after a bayou where Canada geese wintered), Pelly, and East Baytown - the communities consolidated on January 24, 1948, to form the city now known as Baytown. The city's economy was transformed by the 1916 discovery of the Goose Creek Oil Field, which led Humble Oil and Refining Company founder Ross S. Sterling to build the first offshore drilling operation in Texas and the second in the United States, followed by the construction of the Baytown Refinery, now one of the world's largest Exxon facilities with Exxon-Mobil operating over 10 plants in the area and announcing a $2 billion chemical expansion in 2019. Steel manufacturing also played a significant role from 1970 to 1986 when United States Steel operated the Texas Works before its closure, with the facility later becoming JSW Steel USA, Inc. Historic landmarks include the still-operating Lynchburg Ferry, established by early settler Nathaniel Lynch at the junction of the San Jacinto River and Buffalo Bayou, and K'nesseth Israel synagogue, founded in 1930 by Jewish families who immigrated to the area. Spring, Texas is a census-designated place in Harris County within the extraterritorial jurisdiction of Houston and part of the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land metropolitan area, with a population of 62,559 as of the 2020 census. Originally inhabited by the Orcoquiza Native Americans, the area began developing after 1838 when William Pierpont established a trading post on Spring Creek, followed by German immigrant farmers in the mid-1840s who grew sugar cane, cotton, and vegetables. The International and Great Northern Railroad, completed through Spring in 1871 and expanded in 1901-1903, transformed the town into a major switchyard with 200 rail workers by 1910, though the roundhouse's 1923 relocation to Houston caused significant population decline until suburban expansion resumed in the 1970s. Old Town Spring, located at the intersection of Spring-Cypress and Hardy roads, was revitalized beginning in 1980 and developed into a tourist destination featuring restored historic houses converted into shops. The area is notable for housing the Goodyear airship America from 1969 to 1992, whose massive hangar was a major motorist attraction visible from Interstate 45 until demolition.