ABSTRACT
HOUSTON With just under two million inhabitants counted in the 2000 census, Houston is the fourth most populous city in the United States. Situated on the banks of Buffalo Bayou fifteen miles west of its estuary in the Gulf of Mexico, Houston marks the convergence of three geocultural regions-the South, the Gulf Coast, and the Southwest-and has served as an entryway and exit route for all three, each of which has flavored the city’s folklife. The city also has historic cultural associations with the oil and cattle industries, and in the twenty-first century it displays a growing globalism.
