Corpus Christi, Texas, is a coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas. It serves as the county seat and largest city of Nueces County, with portions extending into Aransas, Kleberg, and San Patricio counties. The city is located 130 miles southeast of San Antonio and 208 miles southwest of Houston. Its political boundaries encompass Nueces Bay and Corpus Christi Bay. The city's population was 316,239 in 2022, making it the eighth-most
populous city in Texas. The Corpus Christi metropolitan area had an estimated population of 442,600.
First Peoples & First Mentions
The name Corpus Christi means 'Body of Christ' in Ecclesiastical Latin, a reference to the Christian sacrament of Holy Communion. The name was given to the settlement and surrounding bay by Spanish explorer Alonso Álvarez de Pineda in 1519, as he encountered the lush semitropical bay on the Western Christian feast day of Corpus Christi. Cabeza de Vaca may have passed through Corpus Christi in the 1500s, but the first European to study the Nueces River and Corpus Christi Bay was Joaquín de Orobio y Basterr in 1747.
Explorers, Missions & Colonial Outposts
In 1839, the first known permanent settlement of Corpus Christi was established by Colonel Henry Lawrence Kinney and William P. Aubrey as Kinney's Trading Post, or Kinney's Ranch. It was a small trading post that sold supplies to a Mexican revolutionary army camped about 25 miles west. In July 1845, U.S. troops commanded by General Zachary Taylor set up camp there in preparation for war with Mexico, where they remained until March 1846. About a year later, the settlement was named Corpus Christi and was incorporated on September 9, 1852.
From Empire to Nation: Transfers of Rule
The Battle of Corpus Christi was fought between August 12 and August 18, 1862, during the American Civil War. United States Navy forces blockading Texas fought a small land and sea engagement with Confederate forces in and around Corpus Christi Bay and bombarded the city. Union forces defeated Confederate States Navy ships operating in the area, but were repulsed when they landed on the coast. The Port of Corpus Christi was opened in 1926, and the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station was commissioned in 1941.
Rails, Roads & River Landings: Corridors That Sited Corpus Christi
Corpus Christi is served by the Corpus Christi International Airport and Interstate 37. Interstate 69E/U.S. Highway 77 connects the city to Brownsville and Victoria. Texas State Highway 44 is a main thoroughfare that connects Corpus Christi to Laredo and the western part of South Texas. The city is accessed by two major bridges, the New Harbor Bridge (US 181) and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Causeway (PR 22). The Port of Corpus Christi, which is the fifth-largest U.S. port and deepest inshore port on the Gulf of Mexico, handles mostly oil and agricultural products.
