45 Sights in Houston, United States (with Map and Images)
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Welcome to your journey through the most beautiful sights in Houston, United States! Whether you want to discover the city's historical treasures or experience its modern highlights, you'll find everything your heart desires here. Be inspired by our selection and plan your unforgettable adventure in Houston. Dive into the diversity of this fascinating city and discover everything it has to offer.
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Alley Theatre is a Tony Award-winning theatre company in Houston, Texas. It is the oldest professional theatre company in Texas and the third oldest resident theatre in the United States. Alley Theatre productions have played on Broadway at Lincoln Center, toured more than 40 American cities, and played internationally in Berlin, Paris, and St. Petersburg.
The Rothko Chapel is a non-denominational chapel in Houston, Texas, founded by John and Dominique de Menil. The interior serves not only as a chapel, but also as a major work of modern art: on its walls are fourteen paintings by Mark Rothko in varying hues of black. The shape of the building—an octagon inscribed in a Greek cross—and the design of the chapel were largely influenced by the artist. The chapel sits two miles southwest of downtown in the Montrose neighborhood, situated between the building housing the Menil Collection and the Chapel of Saint Basil on the campus of the University of Saint Thomas. About 110,000 people visit the chapel each year.
Market Square Park is a public park in Downtown Houston, Texas, United States. Originally set aside by the Houston Town Company as "Congress Square," the public square was used as a marketplace and city hall, which assumed the name, "Market Square." The City of Houston constructed four different market house/city halls, the first of which opened in 1840. The fourth was constructed in 1904. Market Square is a central feature of the Main Street/Market Square Historic District, a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The square is surrounded by a combination of nineteenth-century architecture and modern residential towers, with ground leases housing a variety of restaurants and bars.
4. Hermann Park
Hermann Park is a 445-acre (180-hectare) urban park in Houston, Texas, situated at the southern end of the Museum District. The park is located immediately north of the Texas Medical Center and Brays Bayou, east of Rice University, and slightly west of the Third Ward. Hermann Park is home to numerous cultural institutions including the Houston Zoo, Miller Outdoor Theatre, the Houston Museum of Natural Science, and the Hermann Park Golf Course, which became one of the first desegregated public golf courses in the United States in 1954. The park also features the Mary Gibbs and Jesse H. Jones Reflection Pool, numerous gardens, picnic areas, and McGovern Lake, an 8-acre (32,000 m2) recreational lake.
5. Sam Houston Park
Sam Houston Park is an urban park located in downtown Houston, Texas, United States, dedicated to the buildings and culture of Houston's past. The park, which was the first to be established in the city, was developed on land purchased by former Mayor Sam Brashear in 1900.
6. Emancipation Park
Emancipation Park and Emancipation Community Center are located at 3018 Emancipation Ave in the Third Ward area of Houston. It is the oldest park in Houston, and the oldest in Texas. In portions of the Jim Crow period it was the sole public park in the area available to African-Americans.
7. Christ Church Cathedral
Christ Church Cathedral, Houston is the cathedral church for the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. The congregation was established in 1839, when Texas was still an independent republic. It is the oldest extant congregation in Houston and one of the oldest non-Roman Catholic churches in Texas. Many Episcopal churches in Houston and the surrounding area were founded as missions of Christ Church, such as Trinity Church, Houston, founded in 1893.
8. MacGregor Park
MacGregor Park-Neagle Field is a park and baseball venue in the Third Ward, Houston, Texas, and the home field of the Texas Southern Tigers baseball team. The Tigers are a member of the Southwestern Athletic Conference.
9. Houston Zoo
The Houston Zoo is a 55-acre (22 ha) zoological park located within Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, United States. The zoo houses over 6,000 animals from more than 900 species. It receives around 2 million visitors each year and is the second most visited zoo in the United States, surpassed only by the San Diego Zoo. It is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).
Wikipedia: Houston Zoo (EN), Website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram
10. Space Center Houston
Space Center Houston is a science museum that serves as the official visitor center of NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. It was designated a Smithsonian Affiliate museum in 2014. The organization is owned by NASA, and operated under a contract by the nonprofit Manned Spaceflight Education Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization. The Johnson Space Center is the home of Mission Control and astronaut training.
11. Houston Museum of Natural Science
The Houston Museum of Natural Science is a natural history museum located on the northern border of Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, United States. The museum was established in 1909 by the Houston Museum and Scientific Society, an organization whose goals were to provide a free institution for the people of Houston focusing on education and science. The museum complex consists of a central facility with four floors of natural science halls and exhibits, the Burke Baker Planetarium, the Cockrell Butterfly Center, and the Wortham Giant Screen Theatre. In 2022, the museum received 1,520,000 visitors, making it seventh on the List of most-visited museums in the United States, and was the third most-visited U.S. science museum. Much of the museum's popularity is attributed to its large number of special or guest exhibits.
12. Downtown Aquarium
Downtown Aquarium is a public aquarium and restaurant located in Houston, Texas, United States, that was developed from two Houston landmarks: Fire Station No. 1 and the Central Waterworks Building. The aquarium is located on a 6-acre (2.4 ha) site at 410 Bagby Street in downtown Houston. It houses over 200 species of aquatic animals in 500,000 US gallons (1,900,000 L) of aquariums. The complex includes two restaurants, a bar, and banquet facilities. It offers programs such as Marine Biologist for a Day, Zoologist for a Day, Sea Safari Camp, overnight stays and more. The education department works with school groups and conducts outreach programs.
13. Discovery Green
Discovery Green is an 11.78-acre (47,700 m2) public urban park in Downtown Houston, Texas, bounded by La Branch Street to the west, McKinney Street to the north, Avenida de las Americas to the east, and Lamar Street to the south. The park is adjacent to the George R. Brown Convention Center and Avenida Houston entertainment district. Discovery Green features a lake, bandstands and venues for public performances, two dog runs, a playground, and multiple recreational lawns.
14. Children's Museum of Houston
Children's Museum Houston (CMH) is a nonprofit children's museum in the Museum District of Houston, Texas. Founded in 1980 and designed by Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, it offers exhibits and bilingual learning programs for children aged 0–12. It is one of 190 children's museums in the United States and 15 children's museums in Texas.
15. 1940 Air Terminal Museum
The 1940 Air Terminal Museum is a museum located in Houston, Texas, United States, at William P. Hobby Airport. Collections are housed in the original art deco building which served as the first purpose-built terminal for passenger flight in Houston. The museum currently exhibits several collections focusing on Houston's civil aviation history and is operated by the Houston Aeronautical Heritage Society (HAHS), a recognized Texas 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.
16. Visitor Information Booth 2
The University of Houston is a public research university in Houston, Texas. It was established in 1927 as Houston Junior College, one of multiple junior college institutions formed in the first decades of the 20th century. In 1934, HJC was restructured as a four-year degree-granting institution and renamed as the University of Houston. Today, Houston is the fourth-largest university in Texas, awarding 11,156 degrees in 2023. It has a worldwide alumni base of nearly 200,000.
17. Shuttle Independence
Space Shuttle Independence, formerly known as Explorer, is a full-scale, high-fidelity replica of the Space Shuttle. It was built by Guard-Lee in Apopka, Florida, installed at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in 1993, and moved to Space Center Houston in 2012. It was built using schematics, blueprints and archival documents provided by NASA and by shuttle contractors such as Rockwell International. While many of the features on the replica are simulated, some parts, including the landing gear's Michelin tires, have been used in the Space Shuttle program. The model is 122.7 ft (37.4 m) long, 54 ft (16 m) high, has a 78 ft (24 m) wingspan, and weighs 171,860 lb (77,950 kg).
18. Temple Beth Israel
Congregation Beth Israel is a Reform Jewish congregation and synagogue located at 5600 North Braeswood Boulevard, in Houston, Texas, in the United States. The congregation, founded in 1854, is the oldest Jewish congregation in Texas; and it operates the Shlenker School.
19. Saint Martin's Episcopal Church
St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas was founded in 1952 by J. Thomas Bagby as the largest parish of the Episcopal Church in North America with nearly 10,000 members. The Parish worships in both traditional and contemporary liturgical styles in the evangelical Anglican and mainline Anglican tradition. The church offers Christian education programs, as well as numerous outreach and missions opportunities, and a variety of programs and events for all ages.
Wikipedia: St. Martin's Episcopal Church (Houston) (EN), Website
20. Wortham Theatre Center
The Wortham Theater Center is a performing arts center located in downtown Houston, Texas, United States. The Wortham Theater Center, designed by Eugene Aubry of Morris Architects, was built out of private funds totaling over $66 Million. The City of Houston owns the building, and the Houston First Corporation operates the facility.
21. Blaffer Art Museum
Blaffer Art Museum is a non-collecting contemporary art museum located in the Arts District of the University of Houston campus. Housed in the university’s Fine Arts Building, it is part of the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts. It was founded in 1973 and has won several awards, including the Coming Up Taller Award as part of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. The museum presents focus and major monographic and group exhibitions of national and international contemporary artists as well as artwork by University of Houston School of Art students.
22. Union Station
Union Station is a building in Houston, Texas, in the United States. Dedicated on March 2, 1911, and formerly a hub of rail transportation, the building now serves as a cornerstone for Minute Maid Park. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and has since been superseded by Houston's Amtrak station.
23. Bear Creek Pioneers Park
Bear Creek Pioneers Park is a 2,154-acre (8.72 km2) park located in the U.S. city of Houston, Texas, at 3535 War Memorial Drive. It is sometimes called "Harris County Bear Creek Park", or simply "Bear Creek Park."
24. Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum
The Byzantine Fresco Chapel is a part of the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, near the University of St. Thomas. From February 1997 to February 2012, it displayed the only intact Byzantine frescoes of this size and importance in the western hemisphere. The Byzantine frescoes had been taken from the church of St. Evphemianos in Lysi, Cyprus in the 1980s. In September 2011, the collection announced that the frescos would be permanently returned to Cyprus in February 2012, following the conclusion of a long-term loan agreement with the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus. The frescoes had been presented at the museum by agreement with the Church of Cyprus, their owners, but the church decided not to extend the loan further. They will not return to their original home as Lysi is now in Northern Cyprus, but will be displayed at the Byzantine Museum in Nicosia. On March 4, 2012, the Byzantine Fresco Chapel closed, but re-opened in 2015 for the first in a series of site-specific projects.
25. St. Paul's United Methodist Church
St. Paul's United Methodist Church is a congregation of the United Methodist Church, founded in 1906 and located in Houston, Texas, in the city's Museum District. St. Paul's is known for its traditional style of worship as embodied by its choir.
Wikipedia: St. Paul's United Methodist Church (Houston) (EN), Website
26. Art Car Museum
The Art Car Museum is a private museum of contemporary art located in Houston, Texas, United States. The museum, nicknamed the "Garage Mahal," opened in February, 1998. Its emphasis is on art cars, fine arts, and artists that are rarely seen in other cultural institutions. The museum's mission is to elevate awareness of the political, economic, and personal dimensions of art.
27. Antioch Missionary Baptist Church
Antioch Missionary Baptist Church is a historic Baptist church at 500 Clay St in Downtown Houston, Texas. It was historically a part of the Fourth Ward. As of 2012 it was the only remaining piece of the original Fourth Ward east of Interstate 45.
28. Hobby Center for the Performing Arts
The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts is a theater in Houston, Texas, United States. Opened to the public in 2002, the theater is located downtown on the edge of the Houston Theater District. Hobby Center features 60-foot-high (18 m) glass walls with views of Houston's skyscrapers, Tranquility Park and Houston City Hall. The Hobby Center is named for former Texas lieutenant governor and Houston businessman, William P. Hobby, Jr., whose family foundation donated the naming gift for the center. The center replaced the former Houston Music Hall and Sam Houston Coliseum.
29. Sam Houston Monument
The Sam Houston Monument is an outdoor bronze sculpture of Sam Houston by Enrico Cerracchio, installed at the northwest corner of Houston's Hermann Park, in the U.S. state of Texas. The work is administered by the City of Houston's Municipal Arts Commission.
30. Jones Hall
The Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts is a performance venue in Houston, Texas, and the permanent home of the Houston Symphony Orchestra and Society for the Performing Arts. Jones Hall is also frequently rented as a venue for contemporary pop musicians and other performers and is estimated to draw over 400,000 audience members yearly.
31. Our Mother of Mercy Church
Our Mother of Mercy Catholic Church is a Black Catholic church in Frenchtown, an area within the Fifth Ward of Houston. It was the second Black parish to be established in the city and the first established by Louisiana Creoles. It was also the first institution created by non-Anglophones in an African-American neighborhood in the city. It is a part of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston and its membership has included both Creole and non-Creole African Americans.
32. Martin Luther King Jr.
An outdoor 2007 bronze sculpture of Martin Luther King Jr. by American artist Ed Dwight is installed in Hermann Park's McGovern Centennial Gardens in Houston, Texas, United States. The sculpture was vandalized with white paint in August 2017. John D. Harden, Margaret Kadifa, Mike Morris, and Brooke A. Lewis of the Houston Chronicle noted that the vandalism occurred around the same time that protesters demanded the removal of Confederate monuments and memorials in Houston, and the same day that the city's statue of Christopher Columbus was vandalized with red paint.
33. Miller Outdoor Theatre
Miller Outdoor Theatre is an outdoor theater for the performing arts in Houston, Texas. It is located on approximately 7.5 acres (30,000 m2) of land in Hermann Park, at 6000 Hermann Park Drive, Houston, Texas 77030. The theater offers a wide range of professional entertainment, including classical music, jazz, ballet, Shakespeare, musical theater, and classic films, with free performances running from March through November, where the general public can relax in a covered seating area or enjoy a pre-performance picnic on an amphitheatre-style hillside.
34. Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi is an outdoor sculpture of the Indian independence movement leader of the same name, installed at Hermann Park's McGovern Centennial Gardens in Houston, Texas, in the United States. The statue was dedicated in Hermann Park on October 2, 2004.
35. Eleanor Tinsley Park
Eleanor Tinsley Park is a section of Buffalo Bayou Park in Houston, Texas. It was designated on April 20, 1998 in honor of Eleanor Tinsley, who served as a member of the Houston City Council At-Large for 16 years.
36. McKee Street
The McKee Street Bridge carries McKee Street across Buffalo Bayou in Houston, Texas. Built in 1932, the three-span reinforced concrete girder bridge connects the Second and Fifth Ward areas, northeast of downtown Houston. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 3, 2002.
37. Monument au Fantome
Monument au Fantôme is an outdoor sculpture by French sculptor Jean Dubuffet, in 1977. It was originally inaugurated at the plaza of 1100 Louisiana. It is installed on Avenida de las Americas at Discovery Green in Houston, Texas, United States, since 2008. The painted fiberglass and steel frame sculpture features seven individual forms that represent features of Houston, including a chimney, church, dog, hedge, mast, phantom, and tree. Donated by the Dan Duncan family, it is part of Dubuffet's Hourloupe series, which has companion sculptures in Chicago, New York, and in Europe.
38. Houston Police Officers' Memorial
The Houston Police Officers Memorial is a piece of public art erected in Houston, Texas, in 1991, to recognize the sacrifices made by city police officers and to honor those who have lost their lives in the line of duty. The monument is a large-scale granite sculpture by artist Jesús Bautista Moroles.
39. Sesquicentennial Park
Sesquicentennial Park is an urban park in downtown Houston, Texas. Established in 1989 along the banks of Buffalo Bayou, the 22.5-acre (91,000 m2) park was established in 1986 to commemorate the 150-year anniversary of the founding of the city of Houston and of the Republic of Texas.
40. Museum of Health & Medical Science
The John P. McGovern Museum of Health and Medical Science, or The Health Museum in short, is a museum in the Museum District of Houston, Texas. The museum is a member institution of the Texas Medical Center. As of 2012 the museum gets over 180,000 annual visitors, including 22,000 schoolchildren who visit the facility during organized field trips.
41. William L. Thaxton Jr. House
The William L. Thaxton Jr. House is a large single-story Usonian house, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1954 and built in Houston, Texas in 1955. The Thaxton House is Wright's only residential project in Houston. Thaxton was a successful insurance executive and commissioned Wright to design a work of art that would also be suitable for living and entertaining.
42. W. L. Foley Building
The W. L. Foley Building at 214-218 Travis St. in Houston, Texas was originally built in 1860 and reconstructed after a fire in 1889. The reconstruction was designed by architect Eugene T. Heiner. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It burned a second time in 1989 and was reconstructed by artist and architect Lee Benner in 1994.
43. Scanlan Fountain
Scanlan Fountain is an 1891 cast iron fountain, installed in Houston's Sam Houston Park, in the U.S. state of Texas. The fountain was installed in the park in 1972. It was cast by J. L. Mott Iron Works c. 1880 and held by a private individual before being donated to the city by the family of the owner.
44. Mecom Fountain
Mecom Fountain is a 1964 fountain designed by Eugene Werlin, located in the traffic circle at the intersection of Main and Montrose streets in Houston, Texas, in the United States. It was presented to the City of Houston by John W. and Mary Mecom and was the largest in the city at the time it was completed.
45. The Buffalo Soldiers National Museum
The Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, located in Houston, Texas, is a museum dedicated to the history and achievements of Buffalo Soldiers and African American soldiers from all of the branches of the United States Military.
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