San Antonio

A Spanish expedition named this place in 1691 for Saint Anthony of Padua; a mission and colonial outpost followed in 1718, and in 1731 it became the first chartered civil settlement in what is now Texas. It passed from the Spanish Empire to the Mexican Republic in 1821, and to the United States in 1846 with the annexation of the Republic of Texas. It is the seventh-most populous city in the country and the second-most in Texas, at the centre of a metropolitan area of about 2.76 million.