512 Area Code 🌍☎️

Austin is the capital of Texas and the 12th-most populous city in the United States with 961,855 residents as of the 2020 census, while its metropolitan area of 2.55 million ranks 25th nationally. Located in Central Texas within the Hill Country and incorporated on December 27, 1839, Austin is the county seat of Travis County and has been one of the fastest-growing large cities in the U.S. since 2010. Known officially as "The Live Music Capital of the World" due to its vibrant music scene and the PBS series Austin City Limits, the city also earned the nickname "Silicon Hills" in the 1990s following rapid growth of technology companies including IBM (1967), Texas Instruments (1969), and Motorola (1974), with Fortune 500 firms like Apple, Google, Dell, Intel, and Tesla now headquartered or maintaining major offices there. Austin's economy has diversified from its historical foundation in government and education to become a major tech hub, and the city is home to the University of Texas at Austin with over 50,000 students. The region has supported human habitation since at least 9200 BC, with the Clovis culture represented at the Gault Site, and Austin itself is situated approximately 80 miles from San Antonio along the I-35 corridor within a combined metropolitan region of 5 million people. Georgetown, Texas is the county seat of Williamson County located 30 miles north of Austin with a population of 67,176 at the 2020 census, growing to an estimated 101,344 by 2024. Named for George Washington Glasscock who donated the land, Georgetown developed from an agrarian community centered on cotton production and the cattle-driving Shawnee Trail into a regional hub after Southwestern University's establishment in 1873 and railroad construction in 1878. The city is renowned for its Victorian architecture, with a historic district containing 46 contributing structures listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, and it earned the title "Red Poppy Capital of Texas" for its wildflower plantings and annual Red Poppy Festival held each April that attracts tens of thousands of visitors. Southwestern University, founded in 1840, remains the oldest university in Texas and continues to anchor the community. Modern development accelerated dramatically after 1960 due to Austin's expansion, with Lake Georgetown, created by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dam completed in 1979, now providing water resources for the growing metropolitan area. San Marcos is the county seat of Hays County, Texas, located on Interstate 35 between Austin and San Antonio within the Greater Austin Metropolitan Area, with a population that grew from 44,894 in 2010 to 67,553 in 2020. Founded on the banks of the San Marcos River, one of Texas's three largest spring systems, the area represents one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in the Americas with evidence of human habitation dating back over 10,000 years to the Clovis culture. The city was officially established as San Marcos de Neve in 1808 by Felipe Roque de la Portilla under Spanish colonial rule, though the river itself was named by Alonso de León's 1689 expedition on April 25, the feast day of St. Mark the Evangelist. San Marcos is home to Texas State University and the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment. The city earned recognition as the fastest-growing city in the United States in 2013 and 2014, and was named number nine on Business Insider's list of the "10 Most Exciting Small Cities in America" in December 2013.