Fort Worth is the seventeenth-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city within the state of Texas. Located in North Texas and the western edge of the American South, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly 300 square miles (780 km) in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and Wise counties, serving as the seat for Tarrant County. According to the July 2008 census estimates, Fort Worth had a population of 703,073 with an estimated growth to 750,000 by the 2010 decennial U. S. Census. The city is the second-largest cultural and economic center of the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area. Established originally in 1849 as a protective Army outpost situated on a bluff overlooking the Trinity River, the city of Fort Worth today still embraces its western heritage and traditional architecture and design.