Dallas

About Dallas

Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States, with 1,304,379 residents at the 2020 census on 385.8 square miles at an elevation of 482 feet. It is the core of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, which holds about 8.5 million people and is the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country. The city spills over its home county into Collin, Denton, Kaufman and Rockwall.

It began in 1841 as John Neely Bryan's trading post at a ford on the Trinity River, and was incorporated in 1856. Unlike most large cities it has no natural harbour and sits on no navigable water — it grew because two railroads crossed here in the 1870s, and afterwards because of cotton, then oil money banked rather than drilled, and it has been a trading and financial town ever since. Today the economy leans on defence, banking and private equity, information technology, telecommunications and transport.

Downtown holds Reunion Tower and Dealey Plaza, where President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963; the Dallas Arts District, one of the largest contiguous arts districts in the United States, takes in the Winspear Opera House and the Perot Museum. The city is run on the council–manager model, so day-to-day administration sits with an appointed city manager rather than the mayor.

rules.city collects practical civic information for Dallas, verified against official sources, including rules, fees, transport and local services.