About the town » McAllen, Hidalgo County, Texas, United States

McAllen is the twentieth most populous city in Texas as well as largest city in Hidalgo County, Texas, United States. It is located at the southern tip of Texas in an area known as the Rio Grande Valley and is part of the American South. Its southern boundary is located on the Rio Grande River across the Mexican city of Reynosa, the Rio Grande, and about 70 miles west of South Padre Island and the Gulf of Mexico. The 2010 census put the city's population at 129,877 and the McAllen–Edinburg–Mission metropolitan area at 774,769. The Reynosa–McAllen Metropolitan Area counts with a population of nearly 1.7 million. Although the area around McAllen was largely rural in character dependent on agriculture for much of its history since it was settled in 1904, the latter half of the 20th century was marked by steady growth that accelerated during the 1980s and led to an economic and population boom in the 1990s and 2000s. Today the McAllen–Edinburg–Mission metropolitan area is one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the United States, although most of its growth was from surrounding smaller cities. The introduction of the maquiladora economy and the North American Free Trade Association led to a boom in international trade, cross-border commerce with Mexico and health care. McAllen's Medicare spending per capita has attracted national scrutiny due to a sharp increase from a national average in 1992 to a near national high by 2006. McAllen is a regional retail destination for Northeastern Mexican states. While McAllen's total population is 20th among Texas cities, it ranked 12th in overall retail sales, and third in the State in total retail sales per household and per capita.