Austin is the state capital of Texas and the county seat of Travis County. Situated in the region of Central Texas, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 16th-largest in the United States. As of the 2004 U.S. Census estimate, Austin had a population of 681,804. The city is the core cultural and economic center of the Austin–Round Rock metropolitan area with a population of 1.4 million.

The first documented settlement of current day Austin occurred in 1835 and the site was named Waterloo in 1837. In 1839, Mirabeau B. Lamar renamed the city in honor of Stephen F. Austin. Its original name is honored by local businesses such as Waterloo Ice House and Waterloo Records. Austin is situated on the Colorado River and on the Balcones Fault, which in much of Austin runs roughly the same route as the MoPac expressway.

Residents of Austin are known as Austinites and include a mix of university professors, students, politicians, lobbyists, and high-tech workers. The city is home to enough large sites of major technology corporations to have earned the nickname, "Silicon Hills". Austin's official slogan is The Live Music Capital of the World.