Brazoria County is a county in the U.S. state of Texas
located on the Gulf Coast within the Houston–Sugar
Land–Baytown metropolitan area. Regionally, parts of the
county are within the extreme southern most fringe of the regions
locally known as Southeast Texas. Its county seat is Angleton, and
its largest city is Pearland. Brazoria County, like nearby Brazos
County, takes its name from the Brazos River. The county also
includes what was once Velasco, Texas, which was the first capital
of the Republic of Texas. It served as the first settlement area
for Anglo-Texas, whereby the Old Three Hundred immigrated from the
United States. In the 2000 Census, the county had a population of
241,767. The 2009 Census estimate placed the county's population at
309,208. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of the county
is 313,166.
Brazoria County, on the prairie of the Gulf Coast at the mouth of
the Brazos River in Southeast Texas, is bordered by Matagorda, Fort
Bend, Harris, and Galveston counties. It covers an area of 1,407
square miles. Its highest altitude, Damon Mound, is 146 feet above
sea level. The center of the county lies at approximately 29°10'
north latitude and 95°26' west longitude, near the county seat,
Angleton. Other principal towns include Alvin, Amsterdam, Brazoria,
Damon, Pearland, Rosharon, West Columbia, Holiday Lake, Old Ocean,
Bailey's Prairie, Iowa Colony, Bonney, Hillcrest Village, Brookside
Village, Danbury, Liverpool, Manvel, and Sweeny; the towns that
constitute Brazosport include Clute, Freeport, Quintana, Oyster
Creek, Jones Creek, Lake Jackson, Richwood, and Surfside Beach. Key
county roads include State highways 6, 35, 36, and 288, and
railroad service is provided by the Union Pacific and Burlington
Northern Santa Fe railroads. The annual rainfall is fifty-two
inches, and the mean annual temperature is 69° F. Hurricanes and
floods are common in the region, among the most notable being the
hurricanes of 1854, 1900, 1909, 1915, 1932, 1941, Hurricane Carla
in 1961, and the floods of 1899, 1913, 1915, 1929, and 1940. Soils
in the county are chiefly alluvial loams and clays, and are highly
productive when well drained. The growing season averages 309 days
a year. In 1982, between 61 and 70 percent of the land was
considered prime farmland. The principal streams flowing through
Brazoria County into the Gulf of Mexico include the Brazos and San
Bernard rivers, Oyster Creek, Bastrop Bayou, and Chocolate Bayou.
The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway crosses Brazoria County near the
coast. The Brazos River divides the county into two sections; the
western one-third is covered by hardwoods, and the rest is
generally prairieland. Abundant groves of pin oak, cedar, live oak,
mulberry, hackberry, ash, elm, cottonwood, and pecan trees grow in
the river and creek bottoms, while cordgrasses, bunchgrasses, and
sedges predominate in the coastal marshes. When settlers first
arrived, wildlife was abundant, including deer, bear, turkey, and
fish. Two major national wildlife refuges, the Brazoria and San
Bernard, are close to the Gulf Coast in Brazoria County. In 1947
the county ranked fourth in state timber production. More recently,
the petrochemical industry and mineral resources including oil,
gas, sulfur, salt, lime, sand, and gravel, concentrated in the
Damon Mound-West Columbia-Freeport area, have dominated the county
economy. Magnesium is also extracted locally from seawater. |
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