VICTORIA, a city of Texas, U.S.A., 120 M. S.W. of Houston, on the Guadalupe river, 35 m. from Matagorda bay (Gulf of Mexico) the county seat of Victoria county. It is on Federal highway 96, and is served by the Missouri Pacific and the Southern Pacific railways. The population was 5,957 in 1920 (70% native white and 19% negroes) and was 7,421 in 1930 by the Federal census. It is a "city of roses," and the trade centre of a rich agri cultural region, in which cotton is still the leading crop but diversi fied farming is rapidly increasing. The project of an intracoastal
canal from New Orleans to Corpus Christi (finally approved by Congress in 1927) had its inception in Victoria in 1906, and the Guadalupe river up to this point is included in the canal system. Victoria was settled by the Spanish about 1824 and was incor porated as a city of Texas in 1837.