El Paso, Texas

El Paso (/ɛlˈpæsoʊ/; from Spanish, "the pass") is the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in far West Texas. In 1659, Fray Garcia de San Francisco, established Our Lady of Guadalupe Mission of El Paso del Norte. Around this mission, the village of El Paso del Norte grew into what is now the El Paso–Juárez region. El Paso stands on the Rio Grande (Río Bravo del Norte), across the border from Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. The two cities, along with Las Cruces (in the neighboring state of New Mexico), form a combined international metropolitan area, sometimes referred as the Paso del Norte or El Paso–Juárez–Las Cruces. The region of over 2.7 million people constitutes the largest bilingual-binational work force in the Western Hemisphere.

The city is the headquarters of one Fortune 500 and three publicly traded companies, as well as home to the Medical Center of the Americas, the only medical research and care provider complex in West Texas and southern New Mexico, and the University of Texas at El Paso, the city's primary university. The city hosts the annual Sun Bowl, the second oldest bowl game in the country.

Texas

Texas /ˈtɛksəs/ (Spanish: Texas or Tejas [ˈtexas]) is a state in the United States of America. It is the second most populous and second largest state by area in the US. Geographically located in the south central part of the country, Texas shares an international border with Mexico to the south and borders the states of New Mexico to the west, Oklahoma to the north, Arkansas to the northeast, and Louisiana to the east. Texas has an area of 268,820 square miles (696,200 km²) and a growing population of over 27.5 million residents (July 2015).

Houston is the largest city in Texas and the fourth-largest in the United States, while San Antonio is the second largest in the state and seventh largest in the United States. Dallas–Fort Worth and Greater Houston are the fourth and fifth largest United States metropolitan statistical areas, respectively. Other major cities include Austin (the state capital) and El Paso. Texas is nicknamed the Lone Star State to signify Texas as a former independent republic, and as a reminder of the state's struggle for independence from Mexico. The "Lone Star" can be found on the Texan state flag and on the Texan state seal. The origin of the state name, Texas, is from the word, "Tejas", which means 'friends' in the Caddo language.

University of Texas at Austin

The University of Texas at Austin, informally UT Austin, UT, University of Texas, or Texas in sports contexts, is a public research university and the flagship institution of The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883 as "The University of Texas," its campus is located in Austin—approximately 1 mile (1,600 m) from the Texas State Capitol. The institution has the fifth-largest single-campus enrollment in the nation, with over 50,000 undergraduate and graduate students and over 24,000 faculty and staff. The university has been labeled one of the "Public Ivies," a publicly funded university considered to provide a quality of education comparable to those of the Ivy League.

UT Austin was inducted into the American Association of Universities in 1929, becoming only the third university in the American South to be elected. It is a major center for academic research, with research expenditures exceeding $550 million for the 2013–2014 school year. The university houses seven museums and seventeen libraries, including the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum and the Blanton Museum of Art, and operates various auxiliary research facilities, such as the J. J. Pickle Research Campus and the McDonald Observatory. Among university faculty are recipients of the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, the Wolf Prize, the Emmy Award, and the National Medal of Science, as well as many other awards.

University of Texas at El Paso

Coordinates: 31°46′12″N 106°30′18″W / 31.77000°N 106.50500°W / 31.77000; -106.50500

The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is a public, research, Ph.D.-granting institution in the University of Texas System. The school was founded in 1914 as the State School of Mines and Metallurgy, and a practice mineshaft survives on the mountainous desert campus. Following a reorganization of the University of Texas in 1920, the school was renamed the College of Mines and Metallurgy of the University of Texas. It became Texas Western College of the University of Texas in 1949, and The University of Texas at El Paso in 1967.

In fall 2014, enrollment was 23,079 (19,817 undergraduate and 3,262 graduate students). UTEP is the largest university in the U.S. with a majority Mexican American student population (about 70%).

The El Paso, Texas, campus features a one-of-a-kind collection of buildings in the Bhutanese architectural style. The UTEP campus is located on hillsides overlooking the Rio Grande, with Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, within easy view across the border.