USS Lexington, Padre Island National Seashore and the sparkling bay of the Texas Coastal Bend
Corpus Christi is a Texas Gulf Coast city built on a deep-water bay — home to the USS Lexington aircraft carrier museum, the Texas State Aquarium, and the Padre Island National Seashore (the longest undeveloped barrier island in the world). The city sits where the Rio Grande Valley meets the coast and is one of the top birding destinations in the US along the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail.
The Corpus Christi Bay area was home to the Karankawa people for thousands of years before Spanish missionaries arrived in the 18th century and named the bay Corpus Christi (Body of Christ). The city's strategic deep-water port and naval air station — Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, established in 1941 — trained more WWII naval aviators than any other station in the US, and the aviation legacy continues with the Corpus Christi Army Depot, the world's largest helicopter repair facility.