El Paso, TX: ZIP 79931
Population: 678,815 (city, 2020 census) | Metro GDP: $48.6 billion (2023) | Metro Area: 879,000 residents
About El Paso
El Paso sits at the far western tip of Texas, pressed against the Franklin Mountains and divided from the Mexican state of Chihuahua by the Rio Grande. Its name is Spanish for "the pass" or "the route," a reference to the mountain gap that made this spot one of the most strategically important crossings in North American history. People have lived here for 10,000 to 12,000 years: archaeologists found Folsom points left by hunter-gatherers at Hueco Tanks, a rocky preserve about 32 miles northeast of downtown.
Spanish Franciscan missionaries arrived in 1659, when Fray Garcia de San Francisco founded a mission on the south bank of the Rio Grande at what is now Ciudad Juarez. The 1680 Pueblo Revolt pushed Spanish colonial governance south, and the El Paso area briefly became the administrative center for the territory of New Mexico. American settlers began arriving in earnest in the mid-1840s, establishing the settlement of Franklin in 1849. The town was renamed El Paso in 1852 and incorporated in 1873. Today it is the 22nd-most populous city in the United States and the sixth-largest in Texas, with 678,815 residents recorded in the 2020 census.
El Paso forms the American half of what locals call the Borderplex: a tripartite international metro area that includes Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, and Las Cruces, New Mexico. The combined population of this cross-border region tops 2.7 million people, making it the largest bilingual and binational workforce in the Western Hemisphere. About 81% of El Paso residents are Hispanic, giving the city the distinction of being the largest U.S. city with an absolute Hispanic majority throughout its entire recorded history.
What Makes El Paso Unique
- Cowboy boot capital of the world. El Paso has long been the center of American boot manufacturing, with family-owned shops and larger producers alike turning out handcrafted leather boots.
- Five National Parks within reach. White Sands National Park (about 90 minutes east), Carlsbad Caverns (2.5 hours northeast), Guadalupe Mountains National Park (about 100 miles east), Big Bend (roughly 5 hours southeast), and Arizona's Saguaro National Park (4.5 hours west) are all day trips or short overnights from the city.
- Franklin Mountains State Park in the city limits. This 27,000-acre park offers 100 miles of hiking and mountain biking trails without leaving El Paso's boundaries. It is the largest urban park in Texas.
- UTEP's Bhutanese architecture. The University of Texas at El Paso looks like it was transplanted from the Himalayas. The design traces to Kathleen Worrell, wife of the school's first dean, who was inspired by photographs of Bhutan she saw in a 1914 issue of National Geographic. Nearly all 97 buildings on campus follow that Himalayan style.
- The Sun Bowl, since 1935. El Paso hosts the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl, the second-oldest college football bowl game in the country, played each December at Sun Bowl Stadium near UTEP.
- One of the safest large cities in the U.S. Congressional Quarterly ranked El Paso in the top three safest large American cities every year from 1997 to 2014, and the city held the top spot from 2011 to 2014. It has won the All-America City Award five times: 1969, 2010, 2018, 2020, and 2021.
Living in El Paso
El Paso's cost of living runs significantly below the national average, making it one of the more affordable large cities in Texas. Housing costs in particular are low relative to cities like Austin or Dallas. The city operates on Mountain Time, which surprises visitors who expect a Texas city to follow Central Time. That quirk reflects El Paso's geography: it is closer to Phoenix than to Dallas, closer to Los Angeles than to Houston.
Fort Bliss, one of the largest Army installations in the world, is a major employer and economic driver. William Beaumont Army Medical Center and Biggs Army Airfield are also within the city. The Medical Center of the Americas, on the east side of town near UTEP, is the only medical research and care complex in West Texas. The city's metro GDP reached $48.6 billion in 2023.
The Borderplex creates a genuinely binational daily life for many El Pasoans. Cross-border commutes, family ties, and commercial activity between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez are woven into the texture of everyday life here in ways rarely seen in other American border cities.
Things to Do
Franklin Mountains State Park covers the ridgeline visible from nearly every part of the city. Trails like the Cottonwood Spring Loop and the Aztec Cave Trail reward hikers with panoramic views of the Rio Grande valley and, on clear days, the mountains of Chihuahua. The Wyler Aerial Tramway at the park's southern end climbs to 5,632 feet.
Scenic Drive along the mountain face above central El Paso offers one of the most dramatic urban overlooks in the Southwest. The road traces the edge of the Franklin Mountains and delivers views of downtown, the river, and Ciudad Juarez spreading across the valley on the Mexican side.
Hueco Tanks State Park and Historic Site, about 32 miles northeast of downtown on Farm to Market Road 2775, protects more than 2,000 pictographs and rock art images left by Indigenous peoples over thousands of years. Rock climbers come from across the country for the bouldering routes.
Downtown El Paso and the Union Plaza District have seen significant reinvestment over the past decade. Southwest University Park, the Triple-A baseball stadium opened in 2014, anchors the district. The Chihuahuan Desert Food Park on Wyoming Avenue brings together local food trucks in a permanent outdoor setting.
Sotol is the drink to seek out. This agave-cousin spirit is native to the Chihuahuan Desert on both sides of the border, and several El Paso distillers and bars now carry local and artisanal Mexican versions.
The Amigo Airsho returns to Biggs Army Airfield in October 2025 (October 18-19) and October 2026 (October 24-25), bringing military and aerobatic flight demonstrations to one of the region's biggest annual spectacles.
Schools
No school records were returned for ZIP code 79931 specifically in our database. El Paso is served by El Paso Independent School District (EPISD), one of the largest school districts in Texas, along with Socorro ISD, Ysleta ISD, and Canutillo ISD in the surrounding area. The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), with its distinctive Bhutanese-style campus, enrolls more than 24,000 students and is a major research university. El Paso Community College (EPCC) operates five campuses across the city.
Local Insights
The City of El Paso released its 2025 Popular Annual Financial Report in March 2026, highlighting a continued focus on transparency and community investment. The State of the City address, delivered annually by the mayor through the El Paso Chamber of Commerce, tracks infrastructure, public safety, and economic development milestones.
El Paso holds the designation of a five-time All-America City Award winner, a recognition given by the National Civic League to cities that demonstrate creative problem-solving in tackling local challenges. Winning it in 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic years was a particular point of civic pride.
One more local note: Cormac McCarthy, author of "No Country for Old Men" and the Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Road," lived in El Paso for decades. A trip to the city with his son directly inspired him to write "The Road." The Sun City has that effect on people.
Explore the El Paso Community Board
Local businesses in El Paso can claim a spot on the community board for $1/month. Each listing creates a dedicated, Google-indexed webpage for your business with full LocalBusiness schema, the same structured data that helps you show up in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.
