Discover the Joys of Living in Plano, Texas
A city straddling Collin and Denton counties in northeast Texas, Plano is home to numerous unique attractions, including the famous Crayola Experience, a 60,000-foot family-oriented space which Parents magazine has called one of the “Top 10 Trips to Take Before Your Kid Turns 10.” Plano has also been named the safest city in the nation by Forbes magazine.
The community was founded in the 1840s and officially incorporated in 1873. Plano takes its name from the Spanish word for “flat,” a reference to its unvaried geography. Since its inception, the city has seen growth similar to that of others in the DFW-metro area, growing, for example, from just over 220,000 in the year 2000 to over 260,000 today. The city has become a corporate hub, with companies such as J.C. Penney, Toyota, and Frito-Lay maintaining presences there. It is home to varied retail outlets, among them a luxury Walmart Supercenter and the famous Shops at Willow bend, a shopping mall comprised by over 120 stores.
Despite its name and the unvaried terrain it comes from, Plano contains a large network of parks, trails, and recreational facilities, including the Carpenter Park Rec Center, Oak Point Nature and Retreat Center, and the Pecan Hollow Golf Course. A tree estimated to predate the areas original European settlers resides in Woodruff park. In addition to the aforementioned Crayola Experience, Plano also plays host to “Go Ape,” a family-oriented section of Oak Point which contains zip lines, Tazan swings and the like. The wide variety of recreational attractions, celebrated public safety programs, and cultural diversity (the city is home to the second largest community of ethnic Chinese in Texas) all serve to make Plano an amazing place to vacation or call home.