Harris County, Texas, US 

1.Affiliation Status

Date of Affiliation: June 30, 2006

Signed by: Chou Hsiwei, Taipei County Magistrate and Robert A. Eckels, County Commissioner of Harris County.

2.Basic Information

State: Texas

Time of Establishment: December 22, 1836

Origin: Harris County was first founded on March 17, 1836, as Harrisburg County. The County Government was established in 1837. Harrisburg County was one of the 23 earliest counties in the US. In 1839, the name was changed to Harris County in honor of John Richardson Harris, one of its first White American settlers.

Capital: Houston

Total Area: 4605 km2

Population: 4,092,459 (most populated county in Texas, with the third largest population among counties in the United States)

Population Density: 914/km2 

Demographics: 58.73% White, 18.49% African American and American Indian, 0.45% Native American, 5.14% Asian American, 0.006% Pacific Islander, 14.18% other races, and 2.96% people of two or more races.

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3. Introduction

Harris County is best known for its oil industry, NASA, and the Port of Houston. It is a world-class energy industry (especially oil) city. Energy, together with the bio-chemical and space industries and the Houston Ship Channel, form the industrial foundation of the county. The metropolitan area contains the world's largest petrochemical industrial zone, with plastic raw material extraction factories, pesticide factories, fertilizer factories, and more.

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Harris County is also the world’s leading oilfield machinery manufacturing center. A key to the success of Harris County lies in the Houston Ship Channel, used to transport petrochemicals. The Port of Houston is the busiest port in the US and the second busiest in the world in terms of foreign tonnage. Harris is an economically developed and prosperous county, and many residents have moved there from other cities, both in the US and worldwide.