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About San Antonio

San Antonio ( SAN an-TOH-nee-oh; Spanish for "Saint Anthony"), officially the City of San Antonio, is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio, the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 2.6 million people in 2020. It is the most populous city in and seat of Bexar County. The city is the seventh-most populous in the United States, the second-largest in the Southern United States, and the second-most populous in Texas after Houston.Founded as a Spanish mission and colonial outpost in 1718, the city in 1731 became the first chartered civil settlement in what is now present-day Texas. The area was then part of the Spanish Empire. From 1821 to 1836, it was part of the Mexican Republic. It is the oldest municipality in Texas, having celebrated its 300th anniversary on May 1, 2018.Straddling the regional divide between South and Central Texas, San Antonio anchors the southwestern corner of an urban megaregion colloquially known as the Texas Triangle. Downtown Austin and Downtown San Antonio are approximately 80 miles (129 km) apart, and both fall along the Interstate 35 corridor. This combined metropolitan region of San Antonio–Austin has approximately 5 million people.San Antonio was named by a 1691 Spanish expedition for the Portuguese priest Saint Anthony of Padua, whose feast day is June 13. The city contains five 18th-century Spanish frontier missions, including The Alamo and San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. Together these were designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites in 2015.