Just over 2 million people call San Antonio home, making it the 28th largest metropolitian city in the U.S.  San Antonio has a diversified economy with four primary focuses: financial services, government, health care, and tourism.  Twenty million tourists visit the city and its attractions every year, contributing substantially to the city's economy.

The jewel of the city is the River Walk, which meanders through the downtown area. Lined with numerous shops, bars, and restaurants. The city's only top-level professional sports team, and consequently the team most San Antonians follow, is the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association. 

San Antonio has one major newspaper, the San Antonio Express-News,  which has served the area since 1865.

An extensive bus and streetcar system is provided by the city's metropolitan transit system, VIA Metropolitan Transit. VIA offers 93 regular bus routes and 4 downtown streetcar routes including express service from downtown to the South, West, Northwest, North Central and Northeast areas of the city. Express service to the Far West area of the city is scheduled to begin in late 2009. VIA also offers a special service to city events including Spurs games and city parades from its Park and Ride locations.

San Antonio's weather is alternately dry or humid depending on prevailing winds, turning hot in the summer, mild to cool winters subject to descending northern cold fronts in the winter with cool to cold nights, and comfortably warm and rainy in the spring and fall. San Antonio receives about a dozen sub-freezing nights each year, occasionally seeing some sort of wintry precipitation.