Atascosa County, Texas

Atascosa County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, the population was 44,911. Its county seat is Jourdanton. The county was formed in 1856 from Bexar County and is named for the Atascosa River.

Atascosa County is part of the San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,221 square miles (3,160 km²), of which 1,220 square miles (3,200 km²) is land and 1.9 square miles (4.9 km²) (0.2%) is water.

Major highways

Interstate 35

Interstate 37

U.S. Highway 281

State Highway 16

State Highway 85

State Highway 97

Adjacent counties

Demographics

As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 44,911 people residing in the county. 84.9% were White, 0.8% Black or African American, 0.8% Native American, 0.3% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 10.9% of some other race and 2.3% of two or more races. 61.9% were Hispanic or Latino (of any race).

San Antonio

San Antonio (/ˌsænænˈtoʊni.oʊ/ Spanish for "Saint Anthony"), officially the City of San Antonio, is the seventh most populated city in the United States of America and the second most populated city in the state of Texas, with a population of 1,409,019. It was the fastest growing of the top 10 largest cities in the United States from 2000 to 2010, and the second from 1990 to 2000. The city is located in the American Southwest, the south–central part of Texas, and the southwestern corner of an urban region known as the Texas Triangle.

San Antonio serves as the seat of Bexar County. Recent annexations have extended the city's boundaries into Medina County and, though for only a very tiny area near the city of Garden Ridge, into Comal County. The city has characteristics of other western urban centers in which there are sparsely populated areas and a low density rate outside of the city limits. San Antonio is the center of the San Antonio–New Braunfels Metropolitan Statistical Area. Commonly referred to as Greater San Antonio, the metropolitan area has a population of over 2.3 million based on the 2014 US Census estimate, making it the 25th-largest metropolitan area in the United States and third-largest in the state of Texas. Growth along the Interstate 35 and Interstate 10 corridors to the north, west and east make it likely that the metropolitan area will continue to expand.

County

A county, abbreviated Cnty. (US) or Co. (UK and Ireland), is a geographical region of a country used for administrative or other purposes, in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French conté or cunté denoting a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count (earl) or a viscount. The modern French is comté, and its equivalents in other languages are contea, contado, comtat, condado, Grafschaft, graafschap, Gau, etc. (cf. conte, comte, conde, Graf).

When the Normans conquered England, they brought the term with them. The Saxons had already established the districts that became the historic counties of England, calling them shires (many county names derive from the name of the county town with the word "shire" added on: for example, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire). The Vikings introduced the term earl (from Old Norse, jarl) to the British Isles. Thus, "earl" and "earldom" were taken as equivalent to the continental use of "count" and "county". So the later-imported term became a synonym for the native English word scir ([ʃiːr]) or, in Modern English, shire. Since a shire was an administrative division of the kingdom, the term "county" evolved to designate an administrative division of national government in most modern uses.