College Station, Texas map
30.63° N · 96.33° W · Brazos County · elev. ~350 ft · Central Time
College Station exists because of Texas A&M University. The campus opened in 1876 as the first public college in Texas, a railroad flag stop called College Station served it, and the city only incorporated in 1938 once the settlement around the campus was large enough. It shares Brazos County with Bryan, the county seat, five miles north.
The A&M campus fills the center of the map; SH-6 (Earl Rudder Freeway) runs down the east side and Bryan is immediately north.
Where College Station is in Texas
College Station sits in the Brazos Valley between the Brazos and Navasota rivers, roughly in the middle of the triangle formed by Houston (100 miles southeast), Austin (105 miles west) and Dallas (180 miles north). No interstate reaches it; SH-6 does the work instead, and the drive from Houston has shortened since SH-249, the Aggie Expressway, was extended toward Navasota.
Bryan and College Station function as one city with two governments — locally just "B-CS" — and the census counts them as a single metro area of about 270,000 people together with Burleson and Robertson counties. Grimes County lies east, Washington County and Brenham to the south.
The country here is post oak savannah rolling down to the Brazos bottomlands: about 350 feet above sea level, farmland and pasture beyond the city edge, with the river forming the western county line five miles west of town.
Highways
- SH-6 (Earl Rudder Freeway) – the main route; north through Bryan to Hearne and Waco, south to Navasota and Hempstead.
- SH-21 – southwest to Caldwell and Bastrop, northeast to Madisonville and I-45.
- SH-30 – east to Huntsville and I-45, the fastest link toward Livingston and East Texas.
- FM 2818 (Harvey Mitchell Parkway) – the half-loop around the west and south of the campus.
- FM 60 (University Drive / Raymond Stotzer Parkway) – east–west past Northgate and out to Easterwood Airport.
- SH-47 – the west-side connector past the RELLIS campus to Bryan.
- SH-249 (Aggie Expressway) – the tolled route from Houston that ends near Navasota, 20 miles south.
The campus
Texas A&M enrolls more than 70,000 students at the College Station campus, among the largest enrollments in the country, and the university's land, hospitals, research agencies and athletic facilities occupy a substantial share of the city. Kyle Field, on the east side of campus, seats more than 100,000 for football. The Memorial Student Center, Academic Plaza and the Corps of Cadets quadrangle sit at the historic core; agricultural and engineering research fields spread west across FM 2818.
The George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum stands on the west campus off George Bush Drive. It holds the 41st president's papers and a museum, and the president and Barbara Bush are buried on the grounds. Northgate, the strip of bars, restaurants and student apartments directly across University Drive from campus, is the other place visitors are sent.
The university's reach extends past the campus fence. Easterwood Airport sits on university land west of FM 2818 and carries scheduled flights to Dallas and Houston; the RELLIS Campus, on a World War II airfield along SH-47, houses A&M System research, testing tracks and partner universities; and the state agencies attached to the system, including the forest service and the engineering extension service, keep headquarters here rather than in Austin.
Areas and districts
| Area | What's there |
|---|---|
| Main campus | Kyle Field, Memorial Student Center, Corps quad, Reed Arena |
| Northgate | Bars, restaurants and student housing on University Drive north of campus |
| West Campus | Bush Presidential Library, research park, agricultural fields and Easterwood Airport |
| Century Square | Hotels, shops and offices on University Drive east of campus |
| Wolf Pen Creek | Park and amphitheater in the creek corridor off Harvey Road |
| Southside / Southwood | Older neighborhoods between Texas Avenue and FM 2818 |
| Rock Prairie | Hospitals and medical offices where Rock Prairie Road meets SH-6 |
| RELLIS Campus | A&M System research and testing site on SH-47, on a former World War II airfield |
| Easterwood | Commercial airport on campus land west of FM 2818, with flights to Dallas and Houston |
Distances from College Station
| City | Road miles | Route |
|---|---|---|
| Bryan | 5 | Texas Ave / SH-6 N |
| Conroe | 65 | SH-6 S / SH-105 E |
| Waco | 90 | SH-6 N |
| Houston | 100 | SH-6 S / US-290 E |
| Austin | 105 | SH-21 SW / SH-71 W |
| San Antonio | 175 | SH-21 SW / US-290 / I-10 W |
| Dallas | 180 | SH-6 N / I-35 N |
Football Saturdays add an hour or more to any of these; SH-6 and SH-21 carry the traffic in and out.