College Station grew up around Texas A&M University in the Brazos Valley, 83 miles northwest of Houston, and more than two thirds of its housing is rented. A young, mobile population and a humid, low-lying setting shape what shows up indoors.
College Station counted 120,511 residents in the 2020 census; the median age is just 22.5, and the city sits at about 289 feet in Brazos County, where the Brazos River forms the western border. Texas A&M opened here in 1876 as the state's first public college, now spans more than 5,500 acres and has enrolled the nation's largest student body since 2021. The city incorporated in 1938, the Northgate district north of campus holds its bars, restaurants and apartments, and Bryan borders it to the north.
Of 48,782 housing units, 68 percent are rented, and every August turnover carries German cockroaches and bed bugs between units. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension counts Brazos among the counties with confirmed tawny crazy ants, and Formosan termites are on record here too. The university's own kissing bug research program is based here and has logged unusual numbers of the Chagas-carrying insects in College Station. The city hands out free mosquito dunks and follows the Four D's against West Nile virus.
