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Dallas | |
|---|---|
City | |
| City of Dallas | |
Top to bottom, left to right: Downtown Dallas, State Fair of Texas at Fair Park, Old Red Museum, Winspear Opera House, Perot Museum, the American Airlines Center, the UT Southwestern Medical Center, Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, and JFK Memorial | |
 Seal | |
| Nicknames: Big D, D-Town, Triple D , 214[1] | |
 Interactive map of Dallas | |
| Coordinates: 32°46′45″N 96°48′32″W / 32.77917°N 96.80889°WCoordinates: 32°46′45″N 96°48′32″W / 32.77917°N 96.80889°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Texas |
| Counties | Dallas, Collin, Denton, Kaufman, Rockwall |
| Incorporated | February 2, 1856 |
| Government | |
| • Type | Council–Manager |
| • Body | Dallas City Council |
| • Mayor | Eric Johnson (D) |
| Area | |
| • City | 385.9 sq mi (999.2 km2) |
| • Land | 339.604 sq mi (879.56 km2) |
| • Water | 43.87 sq mi (113.60 km2) |
| Elevation | 420 ft (130 m) |
| Population (2020)[4] | |
| • City | 1,304,379 |
| • Estimate (2021) | 1,288,457  |
| • Rank | 9th in the United States 3rd in Texas |
| • Density | 3,400/sq mi (1,300/km2) |
| • Urban | 5,732,354 (US: 6th) |
| • Urban density | 3,281.5/sq mi (1,267.0/km2) |
| • Metro | 7,637,387 (US: 4th) |
| Demonym | Dallasite |
| Time zone | UTC−06:00 (Central) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC−05:00 (Central) |
| ZIP Codes | ZIP Codes[7] |
| Area codes | 214, 469, 945, 972[8][9] |
| FIPS code | 48-19000[10] |
| GNIS feature ID | 1380944[3] |
| Website | dallascityhall.com |
Dallas (/ˈdæləs/) is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people.[11] It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County with portions extending into Collin, Denton, Kaufman and Rockwall counties. With a 2020 census population of 1,304,379, it is the ninth most-populous city in the U.S. and the third-largest in Texas after Houston and San Antonio.[12][13] Located in the North Texas region, the city of Dallas is the main core of the largest metropolitan area in the Southern United States and the largest inland metropolitan area in the U.S. that lacks any navigable link to the sea.[a]
The cities of Dallas and nearby Fort Worth were initially developed due to the construction of major railroad lines through the area allowing access to cotton, cattle and later oil in North and East Texas. The construction of the Interstate Highway System reinforced Dallas's prominence as a transportation hub, with four major interstate highways converging in the city and a fifth interstate loop around it. Dallas then developed as a strong industrial and financial center and a major inland port, due to the convergence of major railroad lines, interstate highways and the construction of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, one of the largest and busiest airports in the world.[14] In addition, Dallas has DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) with different colored train lines that transport throughout the Metroplex.[15]
Dominant sectors of its diverse economy include defense, financial services, information technology, telecommunications, and transportation.[16] The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex hosts 23 Fortune 500 companies, the second most in Texas and fourth most in the United States,[17][18] and 11 of those companies are located within Dallas city limits.[19] Over 41 colleges and universities are located within its metropolitan area, which is the most of any metropolitan area in Texas. The city has a population from a myriad of ethnic and religious backgrounds and one of the largest LGBT communities in the U.S.[20][21] WalletHub named Dallas the fifth most diverse city in the United States in 2018.[22]
History
Indigenous tribes in North Texas included the Caddo, Tawakoni, Wichita, Kickapoo and Comanche.[23][24][25] Spanish colonists claimed the territory of Texas in the 18th century as a part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Later, France also claimed the area but never established much settlement. In all, six flags have flown over the area preceding and during the city's history: those of France, Spain, and Mexico, the flag of the Republic of Texas, the Confederate flag, and the flag of the United States of America.[26]
In 1819, the Adams–Onís Treaty between the United States and Spain defined the Red River as the northern boundary of New Spain, officially placing the future location of Dallas well within Spanish territory.[27][page needed] The area remained under Spanish rule until 1821, when Mexico declared independence from Spain, and the area was considered part of the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. In 1836, Texians, with a majority of Anglo-American settlers, gained independence from Mexico and formed the Republic of Texas.[28]
Three years after Texas achieved independence, John Neely Bryan surveyed the area around present-day Dallas.[29] In 1839, accompanied by his dog and a Cherokee he called Ned, he planted a stake in the ground on a bluff located near three forks of the Trinity River and left.[30] Two years later, in 1841, he returned to establish a permanent settlement named Dallas.[31] The origin of the name is uncertain. The official historical marker states it was named after Vice President George M. Dallas of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. However, this is disputed. Other potential theories for the origin include his brother, Commodore Alexander James Dallas, as well as brothers Walter R. Dallas and James R. Dallas.[32][33] A further theory gives the ultimate origin as the village of Dallas, Moray, Scotland,[b] similar to the way Houston, Texas, was named after Sam Houston, whose ancestors came from the Scottish village of Houston, Renfrewshire.
The Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States in 1845 and Dallas County was established the following year. Dallas was formally incorporated as a city on February 2, 1856.[14] In the mid-1800s, a group of French Socialists established La Réunion, a short-lived community, along the Trinity River in what is now West Dallas.[34]
With the construction of railroads, Dallas became a business and trading center and was booming by the end of the 19th century. It became an industrial city, attracting workers from Texas, the South, and the Midwest. The Praetorian Building in Dallas of 15 stories, built in 1909, was among the first skyscrapers west of the Mississippi and the tallest building in Texas for some time.[35] It marked the prominence of Dallas as a city. A racetrack for thoroughbreds was built and their owners established the Dallas Jockey Club. Trotters raced at a track in Fort Worth, where a similar drivers club was based. The rapid expansion of population increased competition for jobs and housing.
In 1910, a white mob of hundreds of people lynched a black man, Allen Brooks, accused of raping a little girl. The mob tortured Brooks, then killed him at the downtown intersection of Main and Akard by hanging him from a decorative archway inscribed with the words "Welcome Visitors". Thousands of Dallasites came to gawk at the torture scene, collecting keepsakes and posing for photographs.[36][37]
In 1921, the Mexican president Álvaro Obregón along with the former revolutionary general visited Downtown Dallas's Mexican Park in Little Mexico; the small park was on the corner of Akard and Caruth Street, site of the current Fairmont Hotel.[38] The small neighborhood of Little Mexico was home to a Latin American population that had been drawn to Dallas by factors including the American Dream, better living conditions,[39] and the Mexican Revolution.[40]
During World War II, Dallas was a major manufacturing center for military automobiles and aircraft for the United States and Allied forces. Over 94,000 jeeps and over 6,000 military trucks were produced at the Ford plant in East Dallas.[41] North American Aviation manufactured over 18,000 aircraft at their plant in Dallas, including the T-6 Texan trainer, P-51 Mustang fighter, and B-24 Liberator bomber.[42]
On November 22, 1963, United States President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Elm Street while his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Downtown Dallas.[43] The upper two floors of the building from which the Warren Commission reported assassin Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy have been converted into a historical museum covering the former president's life and accomplishments.[44] Kennedy was pronounced dead at Dallas Parkland Memorial Hospital just over 30 minutes after the shooting.
On July 7, 2016, multiple shots were fired at a Black Lives Matter protest in Downtown Dallas, held against the police killings of two black men from other states. The gunman, later identified as Micah Xavier Johnson, began firing at police officers at 8:58 p.m., killing five officers and injuring nine. Two bystanders were also injured. This marked the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since the September 11 attacks. Johnson told police during a standoff that he was upset about recent police shootings of black men and wanted to kill whites, especially white officers.[45][46] After hours of negotiation failed, police resorted to a robot-delivered bomb, killing Johnson inside Dallas College El Centro Campus. The shooting occurred in an area of hotels, restaurants, businesses, and residential apartments only a few blocks away from Dealey Plaza.
Geography
Dallas is situated in the Southern United States, in North Texas. It is the county seat of Dallas County and portions of the city extend into neighboring Collin, Denton, Kaufman, and Rockwall counties. Many suburbs surround Dallas; three enclaves are within the city boundaries—Cockrell Hill, Highland Park, and University Park. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 385.8 square miles (999.3 km2); 340.5 square miles (881.9 km2) of Dallas is land and 45.3 square miles (117.4 km2) of it (11.75%) is water.[47] Dallas makes up one-fifth of the much larger urbanized area known as the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, in which one quarter of all Texans live.
Architecture
Dallas's skyline has twenty buildings classified as skyscrapers, over 490 feet (150 m) in height.[48] Despite its tallest building not reaching 980 feet (300 m), Dallas does have a signature building in Bank of America Plaza which is lit up in neon but falls outside the top two hundred tallest buildings in the world. Although some of Dallas's architecture dates from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most of the notable architecture in the city is from the modernist and postmodernist eras. Iconic examples of modernist architecture include Reunion Tower, the JFK Memorial, I. M. Pei's Dallas City Hall and the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center.[49] Good examples of postmodernist skyscrapers are Fountain Place, Bank of America Plaza, Renaissance Tower, JPMorgan Chase Tower, and Comerica Bank Tower. Downtown Dallas also has residential offerings in downtown, some of which are signature skyline buildings.
Several smaller structures are fashioned in the Gothic Revival style, such as the Kirby Building, and the neoclassical style, as seen in the Davis and Wilson Buildings. One architectural "hotbed" in the city is a stretch of historic houses along Swiss Avenue, which has all shades and variants of architecture from Victorian to neoclassical.[50] The Dallas Downtown Historic District protects a cross-section of Dallas commercial architecture from the 1880s to the 1940s.
Neighborhoods
The city of Dallas is home to many areas, neighborhoods, and communities. Dallas can be divided into several geographical areas which include larger geographical sections of territory including many subdivisions or neighborhoods, forming macroneighborhoods.
Central Dallas
Central Dallas is anchored by Downtown, the center of the city, along with Oak Lawn and Uptown, areas characterized by dense retail, restaurants, and nightlife.[51] Downtown Dallas has a variety of named districts, including the West End Historic District, the Arts District, the Main Street District, Farmers Market District, the City Center Business District, the Convention Center District, and the Reunion District. This area includes Uptown, Victory Park, Harwood, Oak Lawn, Dallas Design District, Trinity Groves, Turtle Creek, Cityplace, Knox/Henderson, Greenville, and West Village.
East Dallas
East Dallas is the location of Deep Ellum, an arts area close to Downtown, the Lakewood neighborhood (and adjacent areas, including Lakewood Heights, Wilshire Heights, Lower Greenville, Junius Heights, and Hollywood Heights/Santa Monica), Vickery Place and Bryan Place, and the architecturally significant neighborhoods of Swiss Avenue and Munger Place. Its historic district has one of the largest collections of Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired prairie-style homes in the United States. In the northeast quadrant of the city is Lake Highlands, one of Dallas's most unified middle-class neighborhoods.[52]
South Dallas
South Dallas is the location of Cedars, and Fair Park, where the annual State Fair of Texas is held from late September through mid-October. Also located here is Exposition Park, Dallas, noted for having artists, art galleries, and bars along tree-lined Exposition Avenue.[53] Southwest of Downtown lies Oak Cliff, a hilly area that has undergone gentrification in recent years, in neighborhoods such as the Bishop Arts District. Oak Cliff was a township founded in the mid-1800s and annexed in 1903 by Dallas.[54] Today, most of the area's northern residents are Hispanic and Latin American. The ghost town of La Reunion once occupied the north tip of Oak Cliff. South Oak Cliff's population is a mix of African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans.
South Side Dallas is a popular location for nightly entertainment at the NYLO rooftop patio and lounge,[55] The Cedars Social.[56] The neighborhood has undergone extensive development and community integration. What was once an area characterized by high rates of poverty and crime is now one of the city's most attractive social and living destinations.[57][58]
Further east, in the southeast quadrant of the city, is the large neighborhood of Pleasant Grove. Once an independent city, it is a collection of mostly lower-income residential areas stretching to Seagoville in the southeast. Though a city neighborhood, Pleasant Grove is surrounded by undeveloped land on all sides. Swampland and wetlands separating it from South Dallas are part of the Great Trinity Forest,[59] a subsection of the city's Trinity River Project, newly appreciated for habitat and flood control.
Districts
- Bishop Arts District
- Casa Linda
- Casa View
- Cedars
- Deep Ellum
- Design District
- Downtown
- Exposition Park
- Fair Park
- Highland Hills
- Kessler
- Knox-Henderson
- Lakewood
- Lake Highlands
- Lower Greenville
- "M" Streets
- Oak Cliff
- Oak Lawn
- Park Cities
- Pleasant Grove
- Preston Hollow
- Southwestern Medical District
- Trinity Groves
- Turtle Creek
- Uptown
- Victory Park
- West End
Topography
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Dallas and its surrounding area are mostly flat. The city lies at elevations ranging from 450 to 550 feet (137 to 168 m) above sea level. The western edge of the Austin Chalk Formation, a limestone escarpment (also known as the "White Rock Escarpment"), rises 230 feet (70 m) and runs roughly north–south through Dallas County. South of the Trinity River, the uplift is particularly noticeable in the neighborhoods of Oak Cliff and the adjacent cities of Cockrell Hill, Cedar Hill, Grand Prairie, and Irving. Marked variations in terrain are also found in cities immediately to the west in Tarrant County surrounding Fort Worth, as well as along Turtle Creek north of Downtown.
Dallas, like many other cities, was founded along a river. The city was founded at the location of a "white rock crossing" of the Trinity River, where it was easier for wagons to cross the river in the days before ferries or bridges. The Trinity River, though not usefully navigable, is the major waterway through the city. Interstate 35E parallels its path through Dallas along the Stemmons Corridor, then south alongside the western portion of Downtown and past South Dallas and Pleasant Grove, where the river is paralleled by Interstate 45 until it exits the city and heads southeast towards Houston. The river is flanked on both sides by 50 feet (15 m) tall earthen levees to protect the city from frequent floods.[60]
Since it was rerouted in the late 1920s, the river has been little more than a drainage ditch within a floodplain for several miles above and below Downtown, with a more normal course further upstream and downstream, but as Dallas began shifting towards postindustrial society, public outcry about the lack of aesthetic and recreational use of the river ultimately gave way to the Trinity River Project,[61] which was begun in the early 2000s.
The project area reaches for over 20 miles (32 km) in length within the city, while the overall geographical land area addressed by the Land Use Plan is approximately 44,000 acres (180 km2) in size—about 20% of the land area in Dallas. Green space along the river encompasses approximately 10,000 acres (40 km2), making it one of the largest and diverse urban parks in the world.[62]
White Rock Lake and Joe Pool Lake are reservoirs that comprise Dallas's other significant water features. Built at the beginning of the 20th century, White Rock Lake Park is a popular destination for boaters, rowers, joggers, and bikers, as well as visitors seeking peaceful respite from the city at the 66-acre (267,000 m2) Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, on the lake's eastern shore. White Rock Creek feeds into White Rock Lake and then exits into the Trinity River southeast of Downtown Dallas. Trails along White Rock Creek are part of the extensive Dallas County Trails System.
Bachman Lake, just northwest of Love Field Airport, is a smaller lake also popularly used for recreation. Northeast of the city is Lake Ray Hubbard, a vast 22,745-acre (92 km2) reservoir in an extension of Dallas surrounded by the suburbs of Garland, Rowlett, Rockwall, and Sunnyvale.[63] To the west of the city is Mountain Creek Lake, once home to the Naval Air Station Dallas (Hensley Field) and a number of defense aircraft manufacturers.[citation needed] North Lake, a small body of water in an extension of the city limits surrounded by Irving and Coppell, initially served as a water source for a nearby power plant but is now being targeted for redevelopment as a recreational lake due to its proximity to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, a plan the lake's neighboring cities oppose.[64]
Climate
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