San Antonio is commonly known as “the heart of Texas” or “the place where the sunshine spends the winter.” The city is located in the American Southwest and the south central part of Texas, where rolling plains and coastal plains meet. It serves as the seat of Bexar County and the bank for the San Antonio River. With the Edwards Plateau to the northwest and the Gulf Coastal Plains to the southeast, the city’s terrain is dotted with oak trees, mesquite, and cacti, which thrive under the clear and partly cloudy skies that prevail more than 60 percent of the time. San Antonio has characteristics of other western urban centers in that it has sparsely populated areas and a low-density rate outside of the city.

San Antonio is only 140 miles from the Gulf of Mexico and is approximately 701 feet above sea level. Because of its strategic location, San Antonio is the seventh largest city in the United States and the second largest in Texas. With a population of more than 1.3 million people, San Antonio also thrives as one of the fastest growing cities in the United States.

Its unique geographical position connects the east and west coasts, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America. Interstate highways connect San Antonio to the major Texas population centers and to primary border crossing points into Mexico including Laredo, Del Rio, Eagle Pass and the ports at Corpus Christi and Houston. Because of this combination of ideal location and quality infrastructure, more than 50 percent of the total goods flowing between the U.S. and Mexico travel through San Antonio before reaching their final destination. For more information on San Antonio’s major transportation routes, please visit our Transportation page.