El Paso is the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, and the largest city in West Texas, set in the Chihuahuan Desert where the Franklin Mountains rise from the desert floor. The Rio Grande forms the city's border with Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, creating one of the largest binational metropolitan areas in the world, with more than two million people across the two countries. El Paso is the only major Texas city in the Mountain Time Zone, and its elevation of about 3,700 feet gives it a high-desert climate with abundant sunshine—hence its nickname, the Sun City. The city's history runs deep. Spanish settlement at El Paso del Norte, across the river in present-day Juárez, dates to the 1650s, and the missions of the Mission Valley—Ysleta, Socorro and San Elizario—rank among the oldest in Texas. El Paso incorporated in 1873, and the arrival of several railroads in 1881 set off a boom that made the town a transportation and trade hub. Its position on the border has shaped it ever since, through the Mexican Revolution, the growth of Fort Bliss and the development of a bilingual, bicultural identity. El Paso counted 678,815 residents in the 2020 census, and about 81 percent of the population is Hispanic, making it one of the largest majority-Hispanic cities in the United States. The economy rests on international trade, the military, manufacturing, health care and call centers, anchored by Fort Bliss, the William Beaumont Army Medical Center and the University of Texas at El Paso. The city hosts the annual Sun Bowl, one of the nation's oldest college bowl games, and has repeatedly been recognized as one of the country's safest large cities. For residents, El Paso offers affordable living, dramatic desert-mountain scenery and a culture shaped equally by Texas and Mexico.