Dallas and Fort Worth Travel Guide | North-Central Texas

Dallas and Fort Worth sit 32 miles apart in north-central Texas, forming the fourth-largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States with a combined population exceeding 7.6 million as of 2020 census data. The two cities developed distinct identities despite their proximity. Dallas emerged as a commercial and banking center during the cotton trade era of the 1870s, while Fort Worth began as a military outpost in 1849 on the Trinity River and evolved into a livestock and meatpacking hub after the Texas and Pacific Railway arrived in 1876. The Fort Worth Stockyards, established in 1866, processed cattle driven north from ranches across Texas and became the largest horse and mule market in the world by 1917. Dallas meanwhile positioned itself as the financial center of the Southwest, hosting the Eleventh Federal Reserve District Bank when the Federal Reserve System was created in 1914.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, occurred at Dealey Plaza at 12:30 PM Central Standard Time as the presidential motorcade traveled west on Elm Street. Lee Harvey Oswald fired from the sixth floor southeast corner window of the Texas School Book Depository building. The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza opened in 1989 within that building and preserves the physical evidence and documentation of the event. The museum occupies the entire sixth and seventh floors and houses more than 45,000 items in its collection. Dealey Plaza itself measures approximately three acres and was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1993.

Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport opened in 1974 between the two cities and spans 17,207 acres, making it larger than the island of Manhattan. The airport serves as a hub for American Airlines, which maintains its headquarters at the airport and operates approximately 900 daily departures from the facility. DFW Airport handles more than 75 million passengers annually as of 2019 data and ranks as the second-busiest airport in the world by aircraft movements. The airport's five terminals contain 165 gates and connect via the Skylink automated people mover system, which transports passengers between all terminals in under nine minutes.

Downtown Dallas contains a 36-block area connected by an underground pedestrian network spanning 95 city blocks. This climate-controlled tunnel system links office towers, hotels, retail shops, and restaurants beneath street level and covers approximately three miles of total walkway. The system developed during the 1970s as building owners connected basements to adjacent properties. Above ground, the Dallas Arts District encompasses 68 acres and forms the largest contiguous urban arts district in the United States. The district contains the Dallas Museum of Art, which holds more than 24,000 works spanning 5,000 years; the Nasher Sculpture Center with its collection of modern and contemporary sculpture; the Meyerson Symphony Center designed by I.M. Pei and opened in 1989; and the Winspear Opera House completed in 2009.

The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth opened in 1972 in a building designed by architect Louis Kahn. The museum's permanent collection includes works by Caravaggio, El Greco, Velázquez, and Monet. Kahn's design uses natural light filtered through curved concrete vaults, each measuring 100 feet long and 20 feet wide. The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, designed by Tadao Ando and opened in 2002, sits on 11 acres adjacent to the Kimbell. The building contains 53,000 square feet of gallery space surrounded by a 1.5-acre reflecting pond. The Amon Carter Museum of American Art, focusing on paintings and photography of the American West, completes the cultural district's trio of major museums.

Fort Worth's Stockyards National Historic District occupies 98 acres along Exchange Avenue and retains original brick streets from the early 1900s. The district conducts cattle drives twice daily at 11:30 AM and 4:00 PM along Exchange Avenue using a herd of Texas Longhorns. These drives cover a quarter-mile route and have occurred continuously since 2004. The Stockyards Championship Rodeo runs year-round every Friday and Saturday evening in the Cowtown Coliseum, built in 1908 and recognized as the first indoor rodeo arena with permanent seating in the United States. The coliseum seats 2,800 spectators and has hosted rodeo events weekly since 1918.

Billy Bob's Texas, operating in the Stockyards since 1981, occupies 100,000 square feet within a former cattle barn built in 1910. The venue contains a live bull riding arena, forty bar stations, multiple dance floors, and capacity for 6,000 patrons. The stage has hosted Willie Nelson more than 100 times since the venue opened. The building served as an open-air livestock barn until 1936, was converted to a department store and then aircraft factory during World War II, and stood abandoned from the 1960s until its music venue conversion.

Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth opened in 1997 and features an oval track measuring 1.5 miles in length with banking angles reaching 24 degrees in the turns. The facility seats 135,000 spectators and hosts two NASCAR Cup Series races annually. The speedway occupies 1,500 acres and includes a 0.4-mile infield dirt track used for sprint car racing. Adjacent Texas Motor Speedway Road Course adds a 2.4-mile road racing circuit using portions of the oval combined with an infield section.

The Dallas World Aquarium opened in 1992 and occupies a restored warehouse in downtown Dallas. The facility replicates an Orinoco River rainforest ecosystem with free-flight birds, sloths, and crocodilians within a climate-controlled atrium. The Mundo Maya exhibit, added in 2004, contains Mayan artifacts and live animal displays including jaguars, spider monkeys, and vampire bats. The aquarium maintains more than 87,000 gallons of saltwater exhibits featuring sharks, rays, and reef fish collected from offshore waters. The facility operates as a private, non-profit organization and receives no government funding.

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas opened in 2012 in a building designed by Thom Mayne covering 180,000 square feet. The museum contains eleven permanent exhibit halls covering topics including geology, paleontology, engineering, and human evolution. The building itself functions as an educational exhibit, with exposed structural systems and a rainwater collection system that captures runoff for irrigation and toilet flushing. The cube-shaped structure stands five stories tall and cantilevers 54 feet over the building's base. The museum was named for entrepreneur and presidential candidate Ross Perot, whose family foundation contributed $50 million toward construction.

Fair Park in Dallas encompasses 277 acres and contains the largest collection of Art Deco exhibition buildings in the United States. The site hosted the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition, which drew more than six million visitors during its six-month run. The State Fair of Texas operates at Fair Park annually for 24 days in September and October, attracting more than 2 million attendees. The fair began in 1886 and claims status as the longest-running state fair in the United States that has maintained operation continuously in the same location. The Cotton Bowl stadium within Fair Park opened in 1930 and seats 92,100 spectators. The stadium hosted the annual Cotton Bowl Classic from 1937 through 2009.

The Trinity River flows through both cities, running 710 miles from its headwaters north of Dallas to its mouth at Trinity Bay on the Gulf Coast. The river drainage basin covers 17,969 square miles. Trinity River Audubon Center in southern Dallas opened in 2008 on the Great Trinity Forest, a 6,000-acre bottomland hardwood forest representing the largest urban forest in the United States. The center's building achieved LEED Platinum certification and operates entirely off-grid using solar panels and geothermal heating and cooling. The forest provides habitat for more than 200 bird species documented by citizen science surveys.

Dallas built a modern streetcar system that began operation in 2015 along a 1.6-mile loop through downtown and the adjacent Oak Cliff neighborhood. The system uses four replica vintage streetcars manufactured in 2013 but styled after 1920s designs. The Dallas Area Rapid Transit light rail system, separate from the streetcar, opened its first line in 1996 and has expanded to 93 miles of track across four lines serving 65 stations. DART rail connects both downtown Dallas and downtown Fort Worth to DFW Airport. The Trinity Railway Express commuter rail line links the two downtowns, covering 34 miles with ten stations in 50 minutes.

Reunion Tower in Dallas rises 561 feet and opened in 1978 as part of the Reunion development. The tower's geodesic dome contains 259 LED lights that display programmable patterns visible across the city. An observation deck at 470 feet offers 360-degree views and rotates a complete revolution every 72 minutes. The tower's base connects to the Hyatt Regency Dallas hotel, built simultaneously in a design by Welton Becket and Associates.

The Fort Worth Water Gardens, designed by architect Philip Johnson and opened in 1974, occupy 4.3 acres in downtown Fort Worth. The main attraction, the Active Pool, features 38 concrete steps and platforms that descend 38 feet below street level with water flowing at a rate of 19,000 gallons per minute. The terraced design creates multiple small waterfalls and pools. The site includes two additional pools: the Quiet Pool, a cypress-lined space with still water, and the Aerating Pool with multiple fountains and spray patterns.

The Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden sits on 66 acres along the southeastern shore of White Rock Lake. The facility opened to the public in 1984 and contains nineteen named gardens displaying seasonal plantings. The arboretum hosts an annual tulip display each spring featuring more than 500,000 tulip bulbs planted across multiple garden areas. White Rock Lake itself covers 1,015 acres with a 9.3-mile perimeter trail used by runners and cyclists. The reservoir was completed in 1911 to supply Dallas municipal water but transitioned to purely recreational use after 1963.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics classifies Dallas-Fort Worth among the top ten largest employment markets in the United States with a civilian labor force exceeding 4 million workers as of 2020. Major corporate headquarters in the metroplex include American Airlines, AT&T, Southwest Airlines, Texas Instruments, and ExxonMobil. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas serves Texas, northern Louisiana, and southern New Mexico, operating branch offices in El Paso, Houston, and San Antonio in addition to the main Dallas facility.