Austin is the capital of Texas. It's the state's fourth-largest
city, home of the prestigious University of Texas, and America's
live music capital. The city was founded in 1835 and initially
bore the name Waterloo. In 1838 the name was changed to Austin,
in honor of Stephen F. Austin, the founder of the Republic of
Texas, which at that time was still independent and not a member
state of the USA. Austin has been the capital of Texas since
1839, which joined the United States in 1845. The connection to
the Houston and Texas Central Railway in 1871 made Austin an
important transshipment center for the cattle and cotton trade.
From 1882 to 1888 the huge state capitol was built, at that time
the seventh largest building in the world.
By the late
19th century, Austin had fewer than 20,000 residents. Since
then, however, the city has grown continuously. There was a
particularly large population boom in the 1920s to 1940s, during
which time the population rose to over 100,000. In the 1990s,
the half million mark was exceeded. Austin is still one of the
fastest growing major cities in the USA and is now scratching
the million mark.
The University of Texas at Austin was
founded in 1883 and is now one of the largest and most renowned
state universities in the USA. The more than 50,000 students
give the city a young, intellectual and culturally diverse
image. Nowhere else in the USA is there such a high density of
music clubs and concerts, which is why Austin is called the
capital of live music. The population of Austin is considered
very liberal, progressive and non-conformist by American
standards. This also corresponds to the slogan Keep Austin Weird
- "Austin should stay weird". However, this also expresses the
fear that Austin could lose its special character due to rapid
growth and influx from other, more conservative parts of the
USA. Politically, Austin is a stronghold of the Democrats and
thus an exception in otherwise Republican-dominated Texas.
Austin is an important center of the semiconductor and IT
industry. Freescale Semiconductor and National Instruments have
their headquarters here, while other major local employers
include Dell, IBM, Apple, Facebook, Google and Samsung. Austin
is therefore nicknamed "Silicon Hills", based on the Silicon
Valley in California.
By plane
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (IATA: AUS) is a
Category C international airport, the fourth busiest airport in Texas
with approximately 14 million passengers a year. The airlines with the
most connections to/from Austin are Southwest, American, United and
Delta Air Lines.
There is a direct connection with Lufthansa from
Frankfurt to Austin. Another intercontinental connection is with British
Airways from/to London. Incidentally, there are transfer connections via
Atlanta, Chicago or Dallas. Within the US, the most frequented
connections are with Atlanta (Southwest, Delta, Frontier), Dallas
(American), Denver (Southwest, United, Frontier), Los Angeles (American,
Delta, Southwest, United) and Houston (United).
Bus line 20 runs
from the airport to the city center every quarter of an hour. The
journey takes about 35 minutes and costs $1.25 one way. Alternatives
include rental cars (all major American car rental companies have
offices at the airport), taxis (about $25 to downtown), app-based paid
ridesharing services (Uber, Lyft, Wingz, and the local app RideAustin;
about $15), and shuttles, which serve several Drop off passengers at the
desired address (e.g. Super Shuttle, approx. $19).
By train
Austin station is served by the Amtrak long-distance Texas Eagle train
(Chicago-St. Louis-Dallas-San Antonio-Phoenix-Los Angeles) once per day
in each direction. Driving time is 2½ hours from San Antonio, 6½ hours
from Dallas, 18 hours from El Paso, 22½ hours from St. Louis, 28½ hours
from Chicago, and 33½ hours from Los Angeles.
By bus
Greyhound
long-distance buses connect Austin several times daily with San Antonio
(journey time 1½-1:45 hrs; from $7), Waco (1:40 hrs; from $21), Houston
(2:50-3 hrs; from $10), and Dallas (3-3:40 hrs; from $14). Coming from
New Orleans and Baton Rouge you have to change trains in Houston.
Austin Bus Station, 916 E Koenig Lane. Phone: (512) 458-4463.
Located on the northern outskirts, 8km north of the city centre. Bus
number 7 takes you downtown.
Public transit in the Austin metro area is operated by the Capital
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Cap Metro for short). These
include the Capital MetroRail, inaugurated in 2010, a regional rail
service that connects downtown and Plaza Saltillo with the northern
suburbs of Crestview, Lakeline and Leander (32 miles total, travel time
just over an hour). However, most of the traffic is handled by buses:
There are 49 regular city bus routes, 12 special routes that operate
only at certain times of the day and night, eight express routes that
only make a few stops, and 19 shuttle routes for the University of
Texas.
If you only use the regular bus routes, a single trip
costs $1.25, a day pass $2.50, a 7-day pass $11.25. If you also want to
use the express bus lines and the MetroRail, the single trip costs
$3.50, the day pass $7, the 7-day pass $27.50. Children and young people
up to the 12th class (with the appropriate ID) travel for free.
Austin is one of the most bike-friendly cities in the United States. The
city is also relatively walkable, at least when moving around Downtown,
West Campus, and East Austin.
Texas State Capitol, Congress and 11th Sts. Massive Texas state
legislature and government building. It was built between 1882 and 1888,
architecturally it is based on the Italian Renaissance. At 92 meters
tall, it is taller than the United States Capitol in Washington.
Texas Governor's Mansion, 1010 Colorado St. Residence of the governors
of Texas, built in 1854 in the Classical style.
Driskill Hotel,
604 Brazos St. Built in 1886 in a neo-Romanesque style, it was
considered the finest hotel south of St. Louis at the time and is now
Austin's oldest operating hotel.
St. Edward's University Main
Building, 3001 S. Congress. Representative, castle-like building in
neo-Gothic style, built in 1887-88 and rebuilt in 1903 after a fire.
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, 2313 Red River Street, Austin, TX 78705. Tel: +1.512.721.0212, Fax: +1.512.721.0170, Email: johnson.library@nara.gov. The Presidential Library and Museum is dedicated to the life and work of the 36th President of the United States, who ruled from 1963 to 1969 after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Sixth Street (Pecan Street). Historic Main Street and premier nightlife and entertainment in downtown Austin. It is lined with numerous bars, clubs, music venues and shops. This is especially true of the section between Congress Avenue and Interstate 35, which is typically closed to car traffic on weekend evenings and then crowded with the party-happy crowd. The street is also worth seeing in daylight, after all, it is lined with a number of listed commercial buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Texas State Cemetery, 901 Navasota St. Texas State Cemetery of Honor
where the founding fathers of the Republic of Texas (including Stephen
F. Austin), governors, other distinguished politicians and soldiers, and
prominent figures are buried.
Mount Bonnell (Covert Park) . Park and
lookout above the Colorado River about 9 km northwest of downtown with
great views of the city.
Zilker Park, Barton Springs Rd. Austin,
Texas. 142-acre recreation area south of town where Barton Creek meets
the Colorado River. There are athletic fields, picnic areas, running and
biking trails, a botanical and sculpture garden, a natural spring
(Barton Springs) year-round swimming pool, and a 12-inch gauge park
railway. You can also canoe on Barton Creek. During the Christmas season
there is a 47 meter high tree of lights.
McKinney Falls State Park.
300-acre nature park in the southeast of the city on Onion Creek. The
tree population is u. a. characterized by pecan, ebony, cedar, bald
cypress, sycamore, elm and oak. There are also various types of cactus,
especially Opuntia. Springtime is filled with a variety of wildflowers,
most notably the blue-flowering Texan lupine, which is a state symbol.
White-tailed deer, raccoons, coyotes, fox squirrels and armadillos,
mockingbirds, roadway cuckoos, red cardinals and blue jays, various
species of turtles and rattlesnakes are all found in this habitat.
Hippie Hollow Park (northwestern outskirts, 17 miles from downtown).
Located on Lake Travis, it's the only park in Texas where clothing is
officially optional. From the 1960s, the spot was popular with hippies
who bathed naked here. Despite complaints from the public, the sheriff
decided that there were worse offenses and tolerated the bustle. In 1985
an official clothing-optional park was set up and appropriate warning
signs were put up. Since the state of Texas' prudish child protection
laws also apply in Austin, the park can only be entered by adults.
Texas longhorns. That's the name of the sports teams at the
University of Texas. They play in the Big 12 Conference of NCAA Division
I.
Texas Longhorns Football. Home games will be played at Darrell K
Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium (“DKR”).
Texas Longhorns Men's
Basketball. Home ground is the Frank Erwin Center.
Texas Longhorns
women's basketball. Home ground is the Frank Erwin Center.
Regular events
South by Southwest. A highlight of Austin's calendar
is the annual South by Southwest (SXSW or South By) music and film
festival, held in March during the university's spring break and around
St. Patrick's Day. To be more precise, it is a whole conglomerate of
festivals and conferences from various music, film and media scenes
taking place in parallel. Numerous prominent artists then come to Austin
to present their works and to exchange ideas. Over 50,000 participants
have been registered in each of the last few years.
Republic of Texas
Biker Rally. Late May or June (after Memorial Day) - large motorcycle
parade with 35,000 participants and 200,000 spectators.
Austin City
Limits Music Festival. First and second weekend of October - big music
festival in Zilker Park (rock, indie, country, folk, electro and
hip-hop).
In 1835 the city was founded under the name of Waterloo, but was
renamed in 1838 in honor of Stephen F. Austin, founder of the then
independent Republic of Texas. Austin has been the capital of Texas
since 1839. The Texas State Capitol was built from 1882 to 1888 and was
the seventh tallest building in the world at the time. It is twenty feet
taller than the US Capitol in Washington, D.C.
The National Park
Service designates two National Historic Landmarks for Austin (as of
December 2016), the Texas State Capitol and the Governor's Mansion. The
city has 187 structures and sites listed on the National Register of
Historic Places (NRHP) as of November 12, 2018.
According to the 2010 census, the population was 48.7 percent white and 8.1 percent African American; 6.3 percent were of Asian origin. 35.1 percent of the population was Hispanic. The median income per household in 2015 was US$57,689. 18.0 percent of the population lived below the poverty line.
Major employers in the city include Dell, Meta Platforms, Google,
AMD, Freescale Semiconductor (a Motorola spin-off), IBM, Wincor Nixdorf,
Apple, National Instruments, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung and eBay. In
December 2020, the software manufacturer Oracle Corporation relocated
its headquarters from Redwood City, California/USA to Austin. In October
2021, Tesla, Inc. announced it would be relocating its headquarters to
Austin and will open Tesla Gigafactory 5 near Austin in 2022.
Because of this accumulation, Austin is called Silicon Hills, in
reference to Silicon Valley and in allusion to the hilly landscape. In
addition, many video game developers are in close proximity, such as
Electronic Arts and Blizzard Entertainment.
The largest airport
in Austin is Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, which opened in
1999 and is located about five miles southeast of downtown.
Austin is considered a very young and dynamic city that has one of the
highest growth rates in the USA. The Austin metro area had a gross
domestic product of $168 billion in 2020, ranking 24th among the
metropolitan areas of the United States. The unemployment rate in the
metro area was 2.8 percent, well below the national average of 3.8
percent as of March 2018.
The University of Texas is particularly well known. With around
50,000 students on campus, it is one of the largest universities in the
United States and is one of the best public universities in the country.
A number of smaller private universities are also located in Austin,
including Concordia University and Saint Edward's, both Christian
colleges.
The city of Austin ranks among the top ten most
educated cities in the United States based on the percentage of the
population with college degrees.
The daily newspaper for Austin is the Austin-American Statesman. The
University of Texas campus also publishes The Daily Texan student
newspaper. The local events magazine is the weekly Austin Chronicle.
Public projects are also critically examined here.
Also based in
Austin is right-wing radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who
broadcasts his radio program The Alex Jones Show from here.
One of the most popular summertime activities is a visit to Barton
Springs, an outdoor pool fed by a natural spring. In the city center,
Sixth Street is one of the main attractions for younger people because
of its numerous (music) pubs. Fourth Street offers more entertainment
for the slightly older. The places mentioned are so close together that
everything is within walking distance - a peculiarity for an American
city.
The biggest attraction in Austin is a natural spectacle
that takes place on the Congress Bridge almost every evening during the
summer months: At sunset, around 1.5 million bats suddenly start from
inside the bridge to hunt for insects together and darken the sky. The
colony is the largest urban bat population in the world, with thousands
of spectators enjoying the sight.
Several lakes in the
vicinity offer opportunities for swimming and water sports. Right in
town, that's Lady Bird Lake, stretched right off downtown. Lake Austin
is significantly larger. Near the dam on Lake Austin Blvd is Oyster
Landing. There are various eateries and cafes here.
The countless
music bars open in the evening. Traditionally, blues rock and country is
offered by the many local and more or less well-known stars. For many
years, the "Armadillo" was an important visitor site for music events in
the USA. There is now a parking lot on the site. The self-proclaimed
"Live Music Capital of the World" claims that there are more live bands
there than, for example, in Nashville, Memphis, Los Angeles, Las Vegas
or New York. As a result, one of the major events held annually in
Austin is the South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) in March.
Moviegoers love the multi-site Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, which mostly
screens higher quality films and often have special theme nights.
Quentin Tarantino and Richard Linklater are regulars, probably due to
the special atmosphere, and hold a film festival here every two years.
The Austin Music Hall, which has hosted numerous music industry
greats, has since been demolished.
Contrary to popular belief, Texas is not dry everywhere. The eastern
part is actually quite green and humid, and the Austin area is
characterized by many rivers and lakes and a green landscape almost all
year round. Accordingly, leisure activities include swimming, water
sports, canoeing or "tubing" (driving down a river on inflated car
tires). Since the summer is long and the temperatures are high, you can
do it almost all year round.
The countryside east of Austin is
relatively flat, while the countryside to the west is aptly named Hill
Country. The approximately 100 meter high hills in this area, mostly
covered with low trees, are only very sparsely populated and are
considered one of the most beautiful areas in Texas. In the heart of the
Hill Country, about 100 miles west of Austin, is Enchanted Rock, a
500-foot-high, semi-circular granite rock that juts out from the
landscape and is a popular tourist destination.
There are many
places in the area whose names refer to German foundations, e.g. B. New
Braunfels, Luckenbach, Gruene or Fredericksburg. If you stop in the
smaller towns in the area, you often learn that the ancestors of the
inhabitants actually came from Germany. At that time, the German
immigrants had a decisive influence on the area and so you can still
find numerous references to German culture today. Many streets,
restaurants, hotels and shops have German names and offer German food. A
few German-Americans still living there also speak the so-called Texas
German, a variety of the German language with English influences. Texas
German is researched at the Department of Germanic Studies at the
University of Texas at Austin by the German specialist Hans Christian
Boas, among others.
Austin has long been the most populous city in the United States
without its own professional team in the major US sports leagues (NFL,
MLB, NBA, NHL and MLS). The Austin FC football franchise did not start
playing in the MLS until the 2021 season. College sports are very
popular. The University of Texas' Texas Longhorns, best known for their
football team, play their home games at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial
Stadium.
In May 2010, Formula 1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone announced
that it had signed a deal with the city of Austin for a Formula 1 race
beginning in 2012. The newly built Circuit of The Americas near Austin
is the first permanent racetrack in the history of US motorsport, built
primarily for Formula 1 and has therefore been home to the US Grand Prix
since 2012. In addition, the organizer of the motorcycle world
championship was able to conclude a ten-year contract with the route
operator, so that races for the motorcycle world championship will also
take place in Austin from 2013.
Asa Brigham (1788–1844), settler, businessman and politician; Mayor
of Austin from 1842 and 1844
Thomas Benton Wheeler (1840–1913),
politician; Mayor of Austin from 1873 and 1877
Vincent Madeley Harris
(1913–1988), Roman Catholic Bishop of Austin
Alan Lomax (1915–2002),
folklore and music researcher
Slim Richey (1938–2015), bluegrass and
jazz guitarist
Townes Van Zandt (1944–1997), songwriter (country,
folk, blues)
Roky Erickson (1947–2019), singer and guitarist
Meat
Loaf (1947–2022), singer and actor
Lloyd Maines (born 1951), country
music producer and songwriter
Stevie Ray Vaughan (1954–1990),
guitarist
Ron Kirk (born 1954), politician (Democratic Party) and
lawyer
Bruce Sterling (born 1954), science fiction writer
Shawn
Colvin (born 1956), singer-songwriter
James McMurtry (born 1962),
folk rock guitarist and singer-songwriter
Harvey Smith (born 1966),
game developer
Elon Musk (born 1971), entrepreneur, lives in Austin
Alex Jones (born 1974), journalist
Gary Clark Jr. (born 1984),
musician and actor
Shakey Graves (born 1987), musician and actor