About Dallas

class="nowrap">Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area had a population of 6,700,991 as of July 1, 2012. The metropolitan economy is the sixth largest in the United States, with a 2012 real GDP of $420.34 billion. The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Dec. 5, 2013 that the metropolitan area led the nation with the largest year-over-year increase in employment and advanced to become the fourth largest employment center in the nation (behind NYC, LA and Chicago) with 3,148,400 non-farm jobs, a 96,100 annual job increase.

Dallas was founded in 1841 and formally incorporated as a city in February 1856. The city's economy is primarily based on banking, commerce, telecommunications, computer technology, energy, healthcare and medical research, transportation and logistics. The city is home to the third largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the nation. Located in North Texas, Dallas is the main core of the largest inland metropolitan area in the United States that lacks any navigable link to the sea.

The city's prominence arose from its historical importance as a center for the oil and cotton industries, and its position along numerous railroad lines. With the advent of the interstate highway system in the 1950s and 1960s, Dallas became an east/west and north/south focal point of the interstate system with the convergence of four major interstate highways in the city, along with a fifth interstate loop around the city. Dallas developed a strong industrial and financial sector, and a major inland port, due largely to the presence of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, one of the largest and busiest airports in the world.

In the latest rankings released on September 14, 2011, Dallas was rated as an Alpha minus world city by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group & Network and