Houston and Texas, it has been said, grew up together. The city was founded in the same year as the Republic of Texas by brothers Augustus and John Allen, speculators from New York. The town became the new nation's first capital, named after Sam Houston, hero of the Battle of San Jacinto and the first elected president of the Republic. When the first steamboat chugged up the Buffalo Bayou, its captain found stakes marking the streets of what is today the largest city in both Texas and the South.

Buffalo Bayou is now part of the Houston Ship Channel, a 400-foot-wide, 40-foot-deep, 52-mile-long man-made waterway flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. More than 200 industries, including petrochemical and steel plants, line its shore. Houston is a leader in both total tonnage and foreign tonnage handled by a US port.

The space industry has thrived here for years, following the establishment in 1962 of NASA's Mission Control Center (now known as the NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center), 16 miles southeast, near Clear Lake City. A number of research and development and other space-related concerns are located in the greater Houston area.

Several construction and redevelopment projects have been undertaken in Houston. The city already boasts one of the tallest buildings in the United States west of the Mississippi in the JP Morgan Chase Tower. Projects have included a convention center, theater center, and Space Center Houston. The face of Houston promises to change continuously through the 21st century.

Conventions and tourism play an important role in the local economy. Relying on its cosmopolitan image, temperate climate, Gulf Coast location, and myriad of shops, accommodations, and recreational and cultural activities, Houston attracts millions of visitors each year.