King Ranch

King Ranch, located in South Texas between Corpus Christi and Brownsville, is one of the largest ranches in the world. (The world's largest is the 6,000,000 acre Anna Creek station in Australia, and the largest contiguous US ranch is the Waggoner Ranch near Vernon, Texas.) The King Ranch is a 825,000 acres (3,340 km2; 1,289 sq mi) ranch, founded in 1853 by Captain Richard King and Gideon K. Lewis, includes portions of six Texas counties, including most of Kleberg County and much of Kenedy County, with portions extending into Brooks, Jim Wells, Nueces, and Willacy Counties. The ranch does not consist of one single contiguous plot of land, but rather four large sections called divisions. The divisions are the Santa Gertrudis, the Laureles, the Encino and the Norias. Only two of the four divisions border each other, and that border is relatively short. The ranch was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961.