Fort Worth anchors the western half of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex in North Texas and serves as the seat of Tarrant County. Founded as a frontier army outpost in 1849 and shaped by the cattle drives of the Chisholm Trail era, the city has long traded on its western identity—"Cowtown" and "Where the West Begins"—while growing into one of the nation's larger cities. The arrival of the railroad in the late nineteenth century made it a livestock and trade center, and later growth in oil, manufacturing, and aviation turned it into a diversified economic hub.
Today the city's economy runs on aviation, aerospace, defense, and logistics, with American Airlines, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Bell Textron, and BNSF Railway among the anchor employers. The Lockheed Martin Aeronautics headquarters and its F-35 program sit on the city's west side, and American Airlines maintains its global headquarters locally, giving Fort Worth one of the strongest aerospace and corporate-aviation clusters in the country.
The city's character is a study in contrasts. The Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District preserves its cowboy heritage with brick streets, longhorn cattle drives, and western-themed attractions, while Sundance Square anchors a lively downtown of restaurants, theaters, and public plazas. A few miles west, the Cultural District clusters nationally recognized art museums around green space, and the Near Southside offers walkable, historic streets lined with bungalows and local businesses. Established westside and southwest neighborhoods, plus newer subdivisions on the city's northern and southern edges, complete a housing landscape that spans more than a century of growth.
Residents range from families in long-established neighborhoods to professionals drawn to downtown and Near Southside living, students around Texas Christian University, and workers in the aerospace and rail industries. With roughly one million residents, Fort Worth offers the scale and amenities of a major city while retaining a distinctly Texan, western-rooted identity that sets it apart from Dallas, its neighbor to the east.
