Edinburg, Texas map
26.30° N · 98.16° W · Hidalgo County seat · Rio Grande Valley · Central Time
Edinburg is the county seat of Hidalgo County and the northern end of the built-up Valley: south of it the towns run together for 40 miles along US-83, and north of it the farmland gives way to brush country almost at once. It is also the university town of the Valley, with the main campus of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and its medical school here.
Centered on downtown. I-69C runs north–south through the city; McAllen is the urban area at the bottom of the frame.
Where Edinburg is in Texas
Edinburg sits about 12 miles north of McAllen and roughly 15 miles north of the Rio Grande, close enough that the Pharr–Reynosa International Bridge is a 20-minute drive down US-281. The McAllen–Edinburg–Mission metropolitan area is exactly Hidalgo County — no other county is included — so the county's 2020 population of 870,790 is also the metro figure, making it one of the largest metros in Texas.
The county seat moved here in 1908 when the town was laid out on the railroad; it was called Chapin at first and renamed Edinburg in 1911. The courthouse square is still the center, and county business — courts, jail, the county offices — is one of the reasons the city grew faster than its neighbors in the last two decades.
The university and the north edge
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley was created in 2015 by merging UT–Pan American in Edinburg with UT–Brownsville. The Edinburg campus, on University Drive west of the courthouse, is the largest of the system's Valley sites and holds the UTRGV School of Medicine. South Texas College also has campuses in the city.
North of Monte Cristo Road the subdivisions thin out into irrigated fields — sugar cane, citrus, cotton, onions — and then into the brush of Brooks County. Two arenas sit on that edge of town along I-69C: Bert Ogden Arena, opened in 2018, and H-E-B Park, the soccer stadium used by the Valley's professional club. The Edinburg Scenic Wetlands on the south side is one of the World Birding Center sites in the Valley.
Highways
- US-281 / I-69C – north to Falfurrias, Three Rivers and San Antonio; south through Pharr to the international bridge.
- SH-107 (University Drive) – east to Elsa and Edcouch; west to Palmview and the Mission farmland.
- Business US-281 (Closner Boulevard) – the old highway through downtown past the courthouse square.
- SH-336 (10th Street) – south into McAllen, the main city street connection between the two.
- FM-1925 (Monte Cristo Road) – the east–west road across the north side of the city.
- I-2 / US-83 – 8 miles south, the Valley expressway west to Mission and east to Harlingen.
The courthouse square
Hidalgo County runs one of the largest county governments in Texas from Edinburg, and the courthouse block downtown carries the courts, the county clerk and the elections office for a county of nearly 900,000 people. The Museum of South Texas History stands a block away in the 1910 county jail, which still has its original cell block, and covers the ranching and steamboat history of the lower Rio Grande.
Downtown Edinburg is laid out on a square grid around that block, with Closner Boulevard running north–south past it. It is quieter than McAllen's commercial districts, and most of the city's growth since 2000 has happened three to six miles north, along Trenton Road, Canton Road and Monte Cristo Road.
Areas and neighborhoods
| Area | What's there |
|---|---|
| Downtown | Hidalgo County courthouse, Closner Boulevard, the Museum of South Texas History |
| UTRGV campus | University Drive at Sugar Road; the medical school, library and student housing |
| Trenton Road | East–west retail corridor between downtown and the north subdivisions |
| Monte Cristo / north | Newest housing, the arenas and the fields beyond FM-1925 |
| I-69C corridor | Bert Ogden Arena, H-E-B Park, hotels and the expressway frontage roads |
| South Edinburg | Edinburg Scenic Wetlands, older neighborhoods running toward Pharr and McAllen |
| South Texas International Airport | General aviation field northeast of the city off SH-107 |
| Alton and San Juan | Neighboring Hidalgo County cities west and south, part of the same continuous urban area |
Distances from Edinburg
| City | Road miles | Route |
|---|---|---|
| McAllen | 12 | I-69C S / SH-336 S |
| Harlingen | 45 | I-69C S / I-2 E |
| Brownsville | 60 | I-2 E / I-69E S |
| Laredo | 150 | US-83 W |
| Corpus Christi | 145 | US-281 N / SH-285 E / US-77 N |
| San Antonio | 235 | US-281 N |
| Austin | 315 | US-281 N / I-35 N |
Street addresses across the Valley use a grid of numbered north–south streets and named east–west roads that continues from city to city, so a Monte Cristo Road address may be in Edinburg, Mission or the county.