A HOUSTON VADE MECUM

Houston, an inland port city of southeastern Texas, on the Gulf Coastal Plain, is joined by the Houston Ship Channel with the Gulf of Mexico, fifty miles distant, at Galveston. The ship channel joins the Port of Houston with the Intracoastal Canal.

Houston’s corporate limits of 349.4 square miles, including the 22 square miles of Lake Houston and a canal leading to it, surround fourteen of twenty-eight municipalities in its metropolitan area, Harris County, of which Houston is the county seat. The county’s total area is 1,747 square miles, of which the land area is 1,711 square miles.

The city’s lowest altitude is 25 feet; the highest is 75 feet. The county’s altitude runs from close to sea level to 310 feet near Tomball, on the north.

The annual normal rainfall is 45.3 inches.

The annual average temperature is 70.0° F.

The excess of births over deaths in the metropolitan area is around 24,000 a year, and each year around 21,000 more persons move to Houston than move away from it. Thus the metropolitan area’s population increases by an estimated 45,000 persons a year—a conservative figure.

Of the 1,243,158 persons living in the metropolitan area at the time of the 1960 census, 634,522 were females and 608,636 were males, giving females a lead of 25,886.

In 1960, 94.5 per cent of the population was urban, 5.5 per cent was rural.

The density of population was 726.6 persons a square mile.

	Population of Houston (Corporate Limits Only) U.S. Census	Percentage of Increase
1850	2,396
1860	4,845	102.2
1870	9,332	92.6
1880	16,513	76.9
1890	27,557	66.8
1900	44,633	61.9
1910	78,800	76.5
1920	138,276	75.4
1930	292,352	111.4
1940	384,514	31.5
1950	596,163	55.0
1960	938,219	57.3
	Population of Metropolitan Houston (Harris County)	Percentage of Increase
1850	4,668
1860	9,070	94.3
1870	17,375	91.5
188	27,985	61.0
1890	37,249	33.1
1900	63,786	71.2
1910	115,693	81.3
1920	186,667	61.3
1930	359,328	92.5
1940	528,961	47.2
1950	806,701	52.5
1960	1,243,158	54.1