US Map / Cities / Laredo

Laredo Map

Laredo faces Nuevo Laredo across the Rio Grande and handles more truck freight than any other land port in the United States, which is most of what the city does.

Where is Laredo?

Laredo is on the southern edge of Texas, on the north bank of the Rio Grande about 150 miles southwest of San Antonio — Interstate 35 begins at the bridges here and runs north through Austin, Dallas and beyond. Corpus Christi is roughly 150 miles east on the Gulf, and Monterrey, the industrial center of northeastern Mexico, is about 150 miles southwest on the other side.

Laredo at a glance

Laredo in Texas

Laredo is the seat of Webb County, a large, thinly populated county on the Texas county map where almost everyone lives in the one city. It sits in the belt of border cities that also includes El Paso, McAllen and Brownsville; of those only El Paso, some 550 miles upriver, is bigger. Spanish is the everyday language of most households here, more so than in any other large US city. The Texas state page and the West South Central division page set the region out.

The Rio Grande and the brush country

The Rio Grande is both the international boundary and the only reliable water for a long way; by the time it reaches Laredo it has already been drawn down heavily upstream, and Falcon Reservoir downstream regulates what is left. The surrounding country is South Texas brush — mesquite, prickly pear and thorn scrub on rolling caliche ridges, grading toward the Chihuahuan Desert to the west. Summers are among the hottest in the country and rainfall is light and unreliable. Four international bridges cross the river at Laredo, and the World Trade Bridge, which carries only commercial trucks, is the reason the city functions as an inland port rather than a border town.

Cities near Laredo

Up the interstate are San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth and Dallas; Corpus Christi and El Paso hold the other ends of the border and the coast. The Rio Grande page follows the river the whole way.