United States · Texas

Houston

  • Population:~2.3M (city), ~7.5M (metro)
  • Timezone:CT/CDT
  • IATA:IAH

Overview

Houston is the largest city in Texas and the fourth-largest in the United States — the energy capital of the world, the home of NASA's Mission Control, and one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the country. That diversity powers an extraordinary food scene, a 19-museum district, the world's largest rodeo, and a sprawling, no-limits Texan energy unlike anywhere else.

Travel

Houston is famously the largest American city with no zoning code, and it feels like it: low, sprawling, unplanned, with its attractions scattered in separate districts rather than gathered in a centre. Plan around that and it works well. The headline draw is cosmic — this is mission control for human spaceflight, and the visitor centre beside the Johnson Space Center is a genuinely serious space museum rather than a gift shop with a rocket. The Museum District, immediately south of downtown, is the surprise: nineteen museums in four walkable zones, several of them free, including one of the country's largest art museums and a small modernist collection widely regarded as one of the finest anywhere. And then there is the eating, which is the real reason people who know Houston rate it. This is among the most ethnically diverse cities in the United States, and the food follows: Viet-Cajun crawfish, taquerías, Gulf seafood, Nigerian and Indian and Salvadoran kitchens, and barbecue taken as seriously as anywhere in Texas. The climate is subtropical and the summer is genuinely oppressive, so spring and autumn are the seasons; the rodeo each spring is the biggest event on the calendar.

Houston's defining attraction is its link to human spaceflight. NASA's Johnson Space Center has been mission control for crewed missions since the 1960s — which is why “Houston” was the first word spoken from the surface of the Moon, in the transmission “Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed”. The adjacent Space Center Houston, the official visitor centre and a Smithsonian Affiliate, is the city's number-one draw for international visitors: it displays the largest collection of Moon rocks on public view, flown spacecraft and over 400 space artifacts, and runs the NASA Tram Tour out to the historic Apollo-era Mission Control, the astronaut training facilities and Rocket Park, where a genuine Saturn V rocket lies on its side. Allow most of a day, and book ahead in peak season.

Frequently asked questions

Space, above all — NASA's Mission Control is here, and “Houston” was the first word spoken from the surface of the Moon. The city is also the energy capital of the world, home to the largest medical complex on Earth (the Texas Medical Center) and the world's largest rodeo, and it is repeatedly ranked the most ethnically diverse large city in the United States — which makes it one of the country's great eating cities.

Diplomatic missions in Houston

7 embassies based in this city, grouped by region.

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