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65 planning areas mapped

Austin Neighborhoods Guide: Best Areas to Visit

From Hyde Park's 1920s porches to the galleries and trailers of East Austin — what each part of the city is actually like, and where its boundary really runs.

Austin has no single official list of neighborhoods. What the city does publish is 65 Neighborhood Planning Areas — a zoning geography adopted area by area by council ordinance — and ATX Things maps all 65 of them. The source file holds 95 sub-district polygons that merge into those 65 named areas, and the city last modified it on September 22, 2021. City of Austin Neighborhood Planning Areas (opens in a new tab)

Browse all 65 boundariesThings To Do
Editorial illustration of Austin neighborhood streetsGet to know another side
ATX Things · Editorial illustration
The local field guide

Plan with real corridors and landmarks

Neighborhood labels are useful for exploring, but a trip still needs an actual stop. Transit corridors and trail access points give this editorial guide concrete anchors.

3 linked sources · Checked

801 connects two familiar corridors

CapMetro Rapid 801 follows North Lamar and South Congress via downtown and UT, linking Tech Ridge and Southpark Meadows. Use the current trip planner for stops and service.[1]

803 takes a different north–south path

Rapid 803 serves Burnet and South Lamar, connecting the Domain and Westgate via downtown and UT. It is a different route, even where the central portions overlap.[1]

The Central Library connects to the trails

The library at 710 West César Chávez Street has connections to the Butler Trail, Shoal Creek Trail and Lance Armstrong Bikeway. It is a concrete meeting point for a downtown outing.[2]

Plan a little better

Before you go

Choose an entrance, not just a neighborhood
The Trail Conservancy’s map identifies access points, parking and routes. Select an entry point before navigating to a broad area such as downtown or the lakefront.[3]
Check the parking choice
The Central Library has bicycle parking and its own garage policies. Review those details when deciding whether to ride, walk, take transit or drive.[2]

A few things to know

Which Rapid route serves South Congress?

Rapid 801 serves the North Lamar–South Congress corridor. Rapid 803 instead follows Burnet–South Lamar. Check CapMetro for the exact stop and current service.[1]

Can I plan a shorter lake walk from a downtown stop?

Yes. The Trail Conservancy maps routes and individual access points. Choose a shorter segment or an out-and-back walk instead of the full ten-mile circuit.[3]

Sources & research notes

Local context is based on the sources below. Confirm current access, schedules, and reservations with the operator. Civic figures elsewhere on this page retain their own reporting periods.

  1. 803 – Capital Metro – Austin Public TransitCapMetro · Checked 2026-09-05
  2. Central Library | Austin Public LibraryAustin Public Library · Checked 2026-09-05
  3. Maps & Parking - The Trail ConservancyThe Trail Conservancy · Checked 2026-09-05

Ten places we'd point a newcomer to

Hand-picked by ATX Things editors. Not ranked, not scored, and not derived from the permit, inspection or receipts data on the boundary pages — this one is just taste.

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Austin neighborhood reading

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Austin neighborhoods: frequently asked questions

How many neighborhoods does Austin have?

Austin has no single official list of neighborhoods. What the city does publish is 65 Neighborhood Planning Areas — a zoning geography adopted area by area by council ordinance — and ATX Things maps all 65 of them. The source file holds 95 sub-district polygons that merge into those 65 named areas, and the city last modified it on September 22, 2021.

Why is there no page for South Congress, Rainey Street or Sixth Street?

Because they are not planning areas. The City of Austin's boundary file has no feature called SoCo, Rainey Street or Sixth Street — those districts sit inside a planning area, or straddle two. South Congress runs along the edge of the Bouldin Creek and South River City areas; Rainey Street and Sixth Street are both inside Downtown. We map the 65 boundaries the city actually publishes and write about the districts here instead of inventing a boundary for them.

What are the best Austin neighborhoods to visit?

For a first visit: South Congress for shopping and hotel patios, East Austin for bars, galleries and food trailers, Rainey Street for a compact bar crawl in converted bungalows, Hyde Park for a quiet walk and a long breakfast, and Sixth Street for live music. That is our editorial pick, not a ranking derived from data.

What is East Austin known for?

East Austin is the part of the city changing fastest — longtime Mexican-American and African-American community institutions alongside galleries, craft cocktail bars, acclaimed restaurants and boutique hotels. East 6th Street and East Cesar Chavez are its main corridors, and both sit inside the East Cesar Chavez and Holly planning areas.

What data does ATX Things have for each Austin neighborhood?

Each of the 65 planning-area pages queries the public record for that exact boundary: building permits from City of Austin Development Services, restaurant inspections from Austin Public Health, mixed-beverage filers from the Texas Comptroller, and registered projects from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Quiet areas legitimately come back with little or nothing, and those pages say so rather than filling the space.

Explore more Austin

Hidden gems

Lesser-known spots across the city, chosen by us.

Free things to do

Parks, trails and swimming holes that cost nothing.

All 65 boundaries

Every City of Austin planning area on one interactive map.

Is the creek flowing?

Live USGS gauge readings for the Greenbelt swimming holes.

Austin neighborhoods: what to know before you go

The first thing worth knowing is that Austin's neighborhood names and Austin's neighborhood boundaries are two different systems. The names people use — SoCo, Rainey, Clarksville, Mueller, East Sixth — come from habit and history. The boundaries come from the 65 Neighborhood Planning Areas the city adopted area by area, by ordinance, as a zoning geography. Most of the famous names sit inside one of those areas, or straddle two. Our boundary pages use the city's geography; this guide uses the names.

Hyde Park was Austin's first planned suburb, laid out in 1891 and reachable by streetcar; the porches, the bungalows and Avenue B Grocery are what survived. Bouldin Creek and North Loop are its south and north cousins — walkable, low-rise, and heavy on independently owned storefronts. If you want to understand what people mean by “old Austin”, those three are where to walk.

South Congress and Rainey Street are the two districts most likely to be on a first visit's list, and both have changed enormously in a decade. South Congress runs roughly a mile and a half south from the river, dense with boutiques and hotel patios. Rainey is a single street of former bungalows turned bars, now ringed by residential towers. Neither is a planning area in the city's file, which is why neither has a boundary page here.

East Austin is where the change is sharpest and most contested. Galleries, coffee, trailers and cocktail bars now sit alongside institutions that have served a historically Mexican-American and African-American community for generations. The permits on our East Cesar Chavez and Holly boundary pages are one of the clearer records of what that rate of change looks like in numbers.

If you are moving rather than visiting, the boundary pages are the more useful half of this site: each one pulls the building permits the city has issued inside that exact polygon, the restaurant inspections Austin Public Health has published there, and the venues filing mixed-beverage receipts — dated, sourced, and honest about what is missing.