Gulf Coast map
Region · 17 counties · 7,688,579 people (2020) · 367 mi of open shoreline · Central Time
The Texas coast is a shallow, sinking plain fronted by a chain of barrier islands, with bays behind them and dredged ship channels cut through them. Where the region ends inland is argued about: the Texas General Land Office manages 18 coastal counties, tourism boards stretch the label from Sabine Pass to South Padre, and Houstonians 50 miles from salt water still call it the coast. This page covers the northern and central stretch — Sabine Lake down to San Antonio Bay — and hands off to the Coastal Bend and the Rio Grande Valley further south.
Zoom in on Galveston Bay to see the Houston Ship Channel, the Texas City dike and the Bolivar ferry route.
Where the coast starts and ends
The eastern end is Sabine Lake, where the Neches and Sabine rivers meet and drain to the Gulf through Sabine Pass. The Sabine River is also the Louisiana state line, so the coast begins at a border. From there the shoreline runs southwest without a single natural harbour: every deepwater port on it — Beaumont, Port Arthur, Houston, Texas City, Galveston, Freeport, Point Comfort — sits at the end of a channel somebody dredged.
Inland the region has no edge you can point to. The land rises about one foot per mile, so the prairie behind Houston looks the same 60 miles from the water as it does at the beach. Most working definitions stop at the counties that touch tidal water plus the ones that drain straight into them, which is why Waller, Austin and Colorado counties are counted here even though nobody swims in them. Going south, Calhoun County and San Antonio Bay are the usual handoff point to the Coastal Bend.
Bays, passes and barrier islands
| Feature | County | What is there |
|---|---|---|
| Sabine Lake | Jefferson, Orange | Neches and Sabine rivers meet; drains through Sabine Pass to the Gulf |
| Bolivar Peninsula | Galveston | SH-87 from the ferry landing to High Island; no bridge at either end |
| Galveston Bay | Harris, Chambers, Galveston | The largest estuary in Texas; the Trinity River empties into its north end |
| Galveston Island | Galveston | About 27 miles long; the seawall fronts the built-up eastern end |
| San Luis Pass | Galveston / Brazoria | Tidal cut between Galveston Island and Follets Island; toll-free bridge |
| Follets Island | Brazoria | CR-257, the Bluewater Highway, runs the length of it to Surfside Beach |
| Matagorda Peninsula | Matagorda | Cut by the mouth of the Colorado River and the Matagorda Ship Channel |
| Matagorda Bay | Matagorda, Calhoun | Second-largest bay on the Texas coast; La Salle's colony stood at the head of its arm |
| San Antonio Bay | Calhoun | Guadalupe River delta; whooping cranes winter on its shores each year |
Behind every one of these islands runs the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, a barge canal that follows the whole Texas coast from Sabine Lake to Port Isabel.
Coastal counties
| County | Seat | Population (2020) | Area (sq mi) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harris | Houston | 4,731,145 | 1,777 |
| Fort Bend | Richmond | 822,989 | 885 |
| Montgomery | Conroe | 620,443 | 1,077 |
| Brazoria | Angleton | 372,031 | 1,608 |
| Galveston | Galveston | 350,682 | 874 |
| Jefferson | Beaumont | 256,526 | 1,113 |
| Liberty | Liberty | 91,628 | 1,176 |
| Victoria | Victoria | 91,319 | 889 |
| Orange | Orange | 84,808 | 380 |
| Waller | Hempstead | 56,794 | 518 |
| Chambers | Anahuac | 46,571 | 871 |
| Wharton | Wharton | 41,570 | 1,094 |
| Matagorda | Bay City | 36,255 | 1,612 |
| Austin | Bellville | 30,167 | 656 |
| Colorado | Columbus | 20,557 | 973 |
| Calhoun | Port Lavaca | 20,106 | 1,033 |
| Jackson | Edna | 14,988 | 856 |
Matagorda and Galveston counties are mostly water: 512 of Matagorda's 1,612 square miles and 495 of Galveston's 874 are bay and Gulf.
Cities
- Houston
2,304,580 people, the fourth-largest city in the United States, sitting 50 miles up its own ship channel.
- Pasadena
151,950. Refineries and petrochemical plants along the south bank of the Houston Ship Channel.
- The Woodlands
114,436. Master-planned township in Montgomery County, 30 miles north of downtown Houston on I-45.
- Sugar Land
111,026. Fort Bend County suburb on US-90A and SH-6, named for the Imperial Sugar refinery.
- Conroe
89,956. Montgomery County seat on I-45 at Lake Conroe.
- Beaumont
115,282. Port on the Neches River, 40 miles inland, and the town nearest the Spindletop gusher.
- Port Arthur
56,039. Refinery city on Sabine Lake, about 18 miles south of Beaumont on US-69.
- Galveston
53,695. Island city, cruise port and the county seat; the seawall runs along its Gulf side.
- Victoria
65,534. Inland on the Guadalupe River, linked to the Intracoastal Waterway by a 35-mile barge canal.
Ship channels and ports
The Houston Ship Channel is the reason the largest city in Texas is not on the water. Buffalo Bayou was dredged and straightened, and deep-draft ships reached Houston in 1914; the channel now runs roughly 50 miles from the Turning Basin east of downtown, through Galveston Bay, to the Gulf at Bolivar Roads. Almost the entire petrochemical complex of the region — Pasadena, Deer Park, Baytown, Texas City — is strung along it.
Three other channels do the same job elsewhere on the coast. The Sabine–Neches Waterway serves Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange. The Freeport Harbor Channel serves the chemical plants in southern Brazoria County. The Matagorda Ship Channel cuts straight through the peninsula to Point Comfort in Calhoun County. Where a channel crosses a barrier island, the beach on either side erodes, which is one reason the shoreline is retreating along most of the Texas coast.
Highways and the one ferry
- I-45 – Houston to Galveston, about 50 miles, crossing the causeway and ending on the island at Broadway.
- I-10 – the east–west spine: Orange, Beaumont, Winnie, Baytown, Houston, Katy, Columbus.
- US-59 / I-69 – southwest from Houston through Wharton to Victoria and on to Laredo.
- SH-146 – Baytown to La Porte, Seabrook and Texas City, over the Fred Hartman Bridge above the ship channel.
- SH-35 – the inland coastal road from Alvin through Angleton, Bay City and Palacios toward Rockport.
- SH-288 – Houston south to Angleton and Freeport.
- SH-87 – the coastal route; the stretch between High Island and Sabine Pass has been closed since the 1980s because the Gulf took the roadbed.
- Bolivar ferry – free, state-run, and the only link between Galveston Island and the Bolivar Peninsula.
Coast records
| Most populous county in Texas | Harris — 4,731,145 (2020) |
| Largest estuary in Texas | Galveston Bay |
| First major Texas oil gusher | Spindletop, south of Beaumont, 10 January 1901 |
| Deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history | The 1900 hurricane at Galveston |
| U.S. tropical-cyclone rainfall record | 60.58 inches at Nederland, Hurricane Harvey, 2017 |
| Houston Ship Channel | About 50 miles, Turning Basin to the Gulf; deep-draft since 1914 |