San Antonio, officially the City of San Antonio, is the seventh-most populous city in the United States, second largest city in the Southern United States, and the second-most populous city in Texas with 1,434,625 residents in 2020. Founded as a Spanish mission and colonial outpost in 1718, the city became the first chartered civil settlement in present-day Texas in 1731. The area was still part of the Spanish Empire, and later of the Mexican Republic.