San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.4 million. Located in the American Southwest and the northern part of South Texas, San Antonio serves as the seat of Bexar County. San Antonio has characteristics of other Southwest urban centers in which there are sparsely populated areas and low density rates outside of the city. San Antonio was the fourth-fastest growing large city in the nation from 2000 to 2006 and the fifth-fastest-growing from 2007 to 2009. The San Antonio–New Braunfels metropolitan area has a population of nearly 2.1 million, making it the 28th-largest metropolitan area in the U.S and third in Texas.
San Antonio was named for the Portuguese St. Anthony, whose feast day is on June 13, when a Spanish expedition stopped in the area in 1691. Famous for Spanish missions, the Alamo, the River Walk, the Tower of the Americas, and host to SeaWorld and Six Flags Fiesta Texas theme parks, San Antonio is visited by approximately 26 million tourists per year. The city is home to the annual San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, one of the largest in the country.
San Antonio has a strong military presence – it is home to Fort Sam Houston, Lackland Air Force Base, Randolph Air Force Base, and Brooks City-Base, with Camp Bullis and Camp Stanley outside the city. San Antonio is home to five Fortune 500 companies and to the South Texas Medical Center, the only medical research and care provider in the South Texas region.