Historic Downtown Plano, with its older brick buildings and an interurban railway museum, is where the city's past shows, in a suburb north of Dallas with about 290,000 people and one of the main corporate hubs of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It is tidy, family oriented and full of commuters. Legacy West and Legacy Town Center hold the modern dining and shopping. Arbor Hills and Oak Point offer trails and nature, and the Balloon Festival in September is a local favorite.
Many residents speak Mandarin, Hindi, Korean or Vietnamese, and the restaurant scene reflects it. Safety is a strength, with violent crime well below the national average. Housing is expensive by Texas standards, though not by coastal ones. Traffic on US-75 and the Dallas North Tollway can be miserable. Summers are hot, often over 100 degrees, and spring brings hail and tornado watches.
Cities with a similar character, anywhere on the site.
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- Known as
- Planoite (resident term); Dallas-Fort Worth's corporate suburb; Legacy corporate hub
- Languages
- English; Spanish; Mandarin and other Chinese; Hindi and other South Asian languages; Korean; Vietnamese
- Airports
- No commercial airport in the city; Dallas Love Field (DAL) about 20 miles south; Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) about 25 miles southwest; DART Red/Orange lines connect Plano to downtown Dallas; McKinney National (TKI) is general aviation only
- Tipping
- Restaurants 18-20% for table service; bars $1-2 per drink; rideshare and taxi 15-20%; hotel housekeeping $3-5 per night; bellhop $1-2 per bag; valet $3-5; hair and spa services 18-20%; delivery 15-20%
About this data
Population: Census Bureau QuickFacts V2025 estimate (July 1, 2025). Metro figure is the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA (July 1, 2025 estimate), shared with Dallas and Fort Worth; Plano has no separate MSA. Area, elevation, coordinates from Wikipedia. Home value and rent from ACS 2020-2024 via QuickFacts (owner-occupied value, not current listing median). Crime from AreaVibes summary of FBI data. Hotel rates, cost-of-living index, event months and daily budget are approximate estimates and were not verified with a live source; visitor website and events calendar loaded on fetch
