Beaumont is a city and county seat of Jefferson County, Texas and is within the Beaumont-Port Arthur metropolitan area. As of the 2000 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 113,866. With Port Arthur and Orange, it forms the Golden Triangle, a major industrial area on the Gulf Coast.

Lamar University is based in Beaumont. The city's daily newspaper is The Beaumont Enterprise. An alternative weekly newspaper, The Examiner, is published on Fridays.

Gulf States Utilities had its headquarters in Beaumont until its absorption by Entergy Corporation in 1993. GSU's Edison Plaza headquarters is still the tallest building in Beaumont (as of 2005). Since 1907, Beaumont has been home of the South Texas State Fair. In 2004, the venue for the Fair changed to Ford Park, a new, larger facility on the west end of Beaumont.