Houston is the largest city in the US state of Texas. The city was founded at the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and White Oak Bayou in 1836. The new city was named after Texas President and General Sam Houston, who led the Battle of San Jacinto in April 1836, the last and decisive battle in Texas’ revolution and secession from Mexico.

In August of that year, Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen acquired a piece of land where they established Houston through advertising, and they had the nation’s capital located here. However, this was moved to Austin in 1839 as Houston grew. A port was soon established along Buffalo Bayou, and within a few decades Houston had become a railroad hub for the export of cotton. In 1901, oil was found east of Houston, and it kick-started the Texas oil industry that brought growth to the city.

In 1914, Houston’s deep-water port opened, which also meant increased traffic to the city and prosperity, as did the later establishment of NASA’s space center in the city. The population of the urban area increased from around 700,000 in 1950 to almost four million by the end of the 20th century, and that development has continued since the turn of the millennium.

Today there is much to see and do in Houston, where you can start at Allen’s Landing, the place where the city was founded. It was here that the Allen brothers in their time acquired land to establish a new town, and there is a small park and a wharf here today, the wharf recreating the site as the original port. From the riverbank, you can look across the water to the Merchants and Manufacturers Building, erected in 1930 as Houston’s largest building. Today, it is a part of the University of Houston-Downtown.

From Allen’s Landing you can walk to the nearby Market Square Park, which was the center of the city from Houston’s early years. Over time, several versions of the city’s city hall have been located around the square, and it was also here that the first Capitol building in the state of Texas was located as a government building, when Houston was briefly the capital. Today, there are some preserved 19th-century houses on the southeast side of the square.

After a tour of Market Square Park, walk along Main Street, home to some of Houston’s oldest buildings, and through the Theater District, Houston’s premier performing arts area. There are several theaters here, such as the Alley Theatre, the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts and the Worthham Theater Center, where Houston Grand Opera has home.

You can also see Jones Hall, which is the venue for the city’s symphony orchestra. In this neighborhood you can visit the Houston City Hall as well, which was built in 1938-1939 in Art Deco architecture. From Tranquility Park by the town hall, you can enjoy the view of downtown’s modern skyscrapers, which stand in contrast to the old and much lower town hall. West of City Hall, you can walk to Sam Houston Park, dedicated to Houston’s history through buildings and culture.

The park is like a small open-air museum with many wooden buildings from the 19th century. The log cabin The Old Place from 1823 is the region’s oldest house, while the Kellum-Noble House from 1847 and the Nichols-Rice-Cherry House from 1850 are beautiful examples of residential houses. The Church of St. John’s from 1891 is also present in the park.

There are quite a few museums in and around Houstons. The Menil Collection is an art museum that was designed by Renzo Piano and has works by many famous artists in its collection, eg Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Andy Warhol and Max Ernst.

You can also visit the Museum of Fine Arts, whose distinguished exhibition ranges from antiquity to modern art with works by, among others, Frans Hals, Canaletto, William Turner, Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso. The art museum is just one of the countless museums in the so-called Museum District, located in and around Hermann Park south of downtown. There are also interesting museums in the outskirts of Houston.

East of the city, the battleship USS Texas is a museum ship in the harbor along Buffalo Bayou. The USS Texas was in active service 1914-1948, and it is the only survivor of the so-called dreadnought battleships, which were named after HMS Dreadnought, which revolutionized warships at the beginning of the 20th century. You can visit Space Center Houston too, located southeast of the city. Here at NASA’s space center, you can learn about the development of space travel and see rockets, space suits, a replica of the American space shuttle and much more.