Comprising a total region of 637.4 sq. miles (1,651 km2), Houston is the eighth-most expansive town in the United States (which includes consolidated city-counties). It is the largest town in the United States by total region, whose government is not consolidated with that of a county, parish, or borough. Although primarily in Harris County, little parts of the city lengthen into Fort Bend and Montgomery counties, bordering other principal communities of Better Houston this sort of as Sugar Land and The Woodlands.

The metropolis of Houston was started by land buyers on August 30, 1836, at the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and White Oak Bayou (a level now acknowledged as Allen's Landing) and included as a city on June 5, 1837. The city is named after former Basic Sam Houston, who was president of the Republic of Texas and had gained Texas's independence from Mexico at the Fight of San Jacinto twenty five miles (40 km) east of Allen's Landing. Soon after briefly serving as the funds of the Texas Republic in the late 1830s, Houston grew steadily into a regional investing middle for the remainder of the nineteenth century.

The arrival of the 20th century experienced a convergence of financial aspects that fueled rapid progress in Houston, including a burgeoning port and railroad market, the drop of Galveston as Texas's major port adhering to a devastating 1900 hurricane, the subsequent construction of the Houston Ship Channel, and the Texas oil growth. In the mid-twentieth century, Houston's economic system diversified, as it turned residence to the Texas Medical Center—the world's premier focus of health care and study institutions—and NASA's Johnson Place Middle, where the Mission Control Middle is located.

Houston's economic system considering that the late 19th century has a wide industrial foundation in vitality, manufacturing, aeronautics, and transportation. Top in health care sectors and creating oilfield equipment, Houston has the second-most Fortune five hundred headquarters of any U.S. municipality inside its town boundaries (after New York Town). The Port of Houston ranks 1st in the United States in global waterborne tonnage taken care of and 2nd in complete cargo tonnage dealt with.

Due to the fact of these strengths, Houston is designated as a world-wide metropolis by the Globalization and World Cities Review Group and Community and worldwide management consulting firm A.T. Kearney. The Houston area is the prime U.S. industry for exports, surpassing New York City in 2013, according to data released by the U.S. Section of Commerce's Worldwide Trade Administration. In 2012, the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land location recorded $one hundred ten.three billion in goods exports. click here , substances, and oil and fuel extraction tools accounted for roughly two-thirds of the metropolitan area's exports final yr. The leading 3 locations for exports have been Mexico, Canada, and Brazil.

The Houston location is a foremost middle for constructing oilfield tools. Considerably of its good results as a petrochemical complex is because of to its occupied ship channel, the Port of Houston.[191] In the United States, the port ranks initial in international commerce and 16th among the premier ports in the entire world. In houston bbw escorts to most locations, large oil and gasoline charges are helpful for Houston's economic climate, as numerous of its residents are utilized in the power industry. Houston is the commencing or finish position of many oil, fuel, and merchandise pipelines.

The Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metro area's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016 was $478 billion, making it the sixth-biggest of any metropolitan location in the United States and larger than Iran's, Colombia's, or the United Arab Emirates' GDP. Only 27 international locations other than the United States have a gross domestic solution exceeding Houston's regional gross location solution (Gap). In 2010, mining (which consists nearly fully of exploration and generation of oil and gas in Houston) accounted for 26.three% of Houston's Gap up sharply in reaction to substantial strength rates and a reduced throughout the world surplus of oil generation capability, adopted by engineering providers, overall health solutions, and production.