San Antonio

City in Bexar County, southern Texas, on the San Antonio River; population (2000 est) 1,144,600. It is a commercial, financial, and military centre. Industries include tourism, aircraft maintenance, oil-refining, and meat-packing. Fort Sam Houston, four Air Force bases, the South Texas Medical Center, and the Southwest Research Center lie within the city limits and play an important part in the economy.

Spanish explorer Damien Massanet named the area after St Anthony in 1691. Founded in 1718 as the Franciscan mission San António de Valero, the town was laid out in 1731. The mission was converted to the Alamo fort in 1793.

Educational institutions include Trinity University (1869) and the University of Texas at San Antonio (1969). There are four 18th-century Spanish missions. The original mission of 1718 was established on an American Indian site, along with the Spanish fort of San António de Béjar. San Antonio passed from Spanish to Mexican rule in 1821, to the Texas republic 1835–36, and to the USA in 1845.

With the arrival of the railroad in the second half of the 19th century, San Antonio became a cattle town; it was the start of the Chisholm Trail and in 1874, the site of the first demonstration of barbed wire for enclosing cattle.

San Antonio retains a strong Spanish flavour; restored colonial buildings include the Spanish Governor's Palace, and a high proportion of the population has a Spanish cultural background. The Alamo became famous for its defence by Texans from the USA in 1836 against a Mexican force under Santa Anna, during which the defenders were massacred. The fort is now a national monument. Other historic features are a restoration of an American Indian Coahuiltecan village site; the La Villita Historic District, San Antonio's original settlement; and the King William Historic District, a late 19th-century German residential area. Hemisfair Park, established for the San Antonio world's fair in 1968, contains the 229-m/750-ft high Tower of the Americas, and the Institute of Texan Cultures and Mexican Cultural Institute. San Antonio Zoo (1929) has one of the largest collections in the USA, and is noted for its African animals.

San Antonio

Major port in the Valparaíso region of central Chile, 64 km/40 mi south of the city of Valparaíso; population (1996) 65,174. Copper is transported here by rail from the huge, nationalized El Teniente mine inland near Rancagua, and exported. San Antonio is also a busy fishing port, with facilities for packaging and processing catches.

There are popular seaside and curative resorts in the vicinity of the town, including, for example, Cartagena 8 km/5 mi to the north.

San Antonio is at the mouth of the Maipo River; wines from further inland up this river valley are some of the most highly prized of the Central Valley area.