When we relocated to Austin, it took us a while to figure out alternate names and proper pronunciation of some of Austin’s well traveled roads, most of which you’re just supposed to know. Not pronouncing the streets properly is the fastest way for Austinites to know you’re not from here and its most certainly followed by either a laugh or an awkward glare. To help you figure this out faster than we did and avoid looking like an idiot, we’ve put together a crash course (no pun intended) on Austin streets and proper pronunciation. So…here it goes!
Austin Street Map
Use this interactive Google map to explore the area and follow along with our Crash Course.
Downtown Streets Named for Texas Rivers
For some strange reason, Downtown Austin street names follow Texas rivers, going in the same order they run through Texas with the exception of Congress Ave.
From east to west, you’ve got (IH-35 Frontage Road), Sabine, Red River, Neches, Trinity, San Jacinto, Brazos, (Congress), Colorado, Lavaca, Guadalupe, San Antonio, Nueces and Rio Grande.
Austin Highways – Names and Numbers
When first moving to Austin, we heard so many different names and numbers of Freeways and Streets, it was difficult to keep them straight. Here’s your Austin Highways Cheat Sheet.
- MoPac is Loop 1
- Mopac stands for Missouri Pacific, not Monument Pack Expressway like our GPS thinks
- Capital of Texas Highway is 360
- U.S. 183 is Research Blvd, Anderson Lane, Ed Bluestein Blvd and Old Bastrop Highway
- 2222 is Bull Creek Road, Northland Drive or Allandale Rd or Koenig Lane
- IH-35 is something we go out of our way to avoid because its always a parking lot and would highly recommend you do the same
Austin Streets and Freeways – Name Changes
If you look at a map, you’ll sometimes see different names for the same road. No, you’re not going crazy and yes its confusing. Here is a handy guide to help you get to know the name changes.
- Enfield Road changes to 15th Street at Windsor Road
- Windsor Road changes to 24th Street just before N Lamar Blvd
- Dean Keeton Street changes to 26th Street at Guadalupe
- 19th Street changes to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard at IH-35
- 1st Street in Downtown Austin is also called Cesar Chavez Street
- 6th St in Downtown Austin is also called Old Pecan St
- FM 1325 is also called Louis Henna, Burnet Rd or MoPac
- RM 620 is also called Marshall Ford Road
- RM 2244 is also called Bee Cave Road
- Texas 71 is also called Ben White Boulevard or U.S. 290
Unique Austin Pronunciations
Possibly the most important category. Commit them to memory and you’ll fit right in from the moment you get off the plane.
- Manchaca is pronounced MAN-chack. Manchaca is a city in Hays and Travis Counties and a street in Austin.
- The city of Manor and Manor Road is pronounced MAY-ner.
- The ‘e’ at the end of is silent. Guadalupe (main street near UT) is pronounced Gwada-LOOP.
- Koenig Lane is pronounced KAE-nig, not KOE-nig.
- Burnet Road is pronounced BURN-it, not Bur-NET.
- The old Austin airport (Robert Mueller) is pronounced Robert Miller and was on Airport Blvd.
- The new Austin airport is nowhere near Airport Blvd nor is it in the city of Austin. Its called Austin-Bergstrom Airport and its in the city of Del Valle, pronounced Dell Valley.
Relocating to Austin?
We can help you learn the area and find out the best place for you and your family to live. Check out our Guide to Relocating to Austin to learn more tips to make your relocation stress free. Then call us at (512) 827-8323 or email us at info@11OaksRealty.com to schedule a no obligation consultation.
Your pronunciation guide is incorrect. Guadalupe is NOT GWADA-LOOP, the ‘e’ is NOT silent. It is Spanish and is pronounced WADALOOPE’ with the ‘e’ being a short e sound.
Manchaca is pronounced just like it is spelled. It a Spanish surname and is actually misspelled. Should be Menchaca, just like the elementary in said town.
Del Valle is also Spanish. It is supposed to be pronounced del va ye, with the final ‘e’ being short.
This will help you sound educated rather than monolingual.
You obviously aren’t from Austin…this is how people IN Austin pronounce these streets and not the literal correct pronunciation.
Manchaca is a Basque Name not Spanish. It is pronounced Man Shack in Bosque and you will find the same spelling and pronunciation over in Louisiana in the Basque area. Mr. Menchaca was from San Antonio not Austin. There is no record he ever came into the Manchaca Area.
Steve Garza ~ I moved to Austin from New York City, where many Spanish-speaking people insist they live in ‘Nueva York’. I lived near a small town near the Canadian border for 10 years spelled Madrid and pronounced MAD rid; spelled like the Spanish city but not pronounced like it. The name of a place is how the people who live there spell and pronounce it, not how some outsider thinks they should.
Koenig is not a unique Austin pronunciation. It is a German word with a German pronunciation. The vowel combination of “OE” is almost always pronounced like that.
Also, 19th St doesn’t become MLK @ IH35. Not sure where you got that one. It’s called MLK from Lamar all the way to 183. One could argue that there isn’t a 19th St.
Pedernales
Ix-nay on the “Gwada – LOOP.” Seriously. It’s Spanish.
Virginia, you’re either not from Austin or you’re completely oblivious to the world around you. Guadalupe is pronounced GWAD-a-loop in Austin.
People who don’t live here — or don’t pay attention to anything outside their own heads — should not try to correct those of us who are true Austinites.
Just sent this to most of my friends. We’ve had numerous discussions on how to properly say Manchaca (MAN-chack) and Burnet (BURN-it). You just proved me right 🙂
It’s Man-Shack, actually.
and also it’s pronounced mew-ler, I’ve never ever heard anyone say Miller.
Steve Garza is obviously not from Austin.
It doesn’t matter what Guadalupe is pronounced in Spanish… locals here pronounce it GWADA-LOOP.
Same thing with Manchaca, locals call it MAN-chack. Try using the correct Spanish pronunciation and people won’t know what you’re talking about.
The peculiarity of Texas is that the way names are pronounced bears little relation to either the Spanish or English pronunciation. How do you explain the pronunciation of the City of Llano? Although a Spanish name, and we all know that in Spanish a double L is pronounced something like Y, the City of Llano is pronounced Laa-no.
and when you look at those evergreen trees that cover our hill country, you will see that Juniper is pronounced “See-darr”. 😉
Anyway congratulations Rebecca on a great guide.
The only minor corrections I’d make is that the only 1st Street in Austin now is South of the river, and runs North-South. The original 1st Street was officially renamed Cesar Chavez St several years ago. Numbered streets south of the river, from 1st through to 8th Street, all run North South and cause much confusion to visitors and even to many locals.
Finally there are all those Texas roads with designations like FM, RM or RR. These are part of the “Farm to Market” road system created in Texas back in the 1930s. The idea was that Farm Roads led in to the more major Farm to Market roads. Anywhere west of Austin the term Ranch is substituted for Farm, and nowadays quite a few of these Farm roads run through developed areas. So you will see roads variously designated as Ranch Road, Ranch Market, Farm Road, Farm Market followed by a number. Examples you have already mentioned are RR 620, RM 2244, FM 1825 etc. These are really confusing to newcomers for although Texas Department of Transportation uses the four abbreviations FM, FR, RM and RR number on highway signs (though even they get confused as to which roads are RR and which RM) but the green street name signs always use the generic term “Farm to Market road” so show them all as FM followed by their number. Compilers of the maps used in GPS systems did not understand this, hence your GPS may give strange directions like” turn from RR 620 onto FM 620″.
I agree with Mark “Also, 19th St doesn’t become MLK @ IH35. Not sure where you got that one. It’s called MLK from Lamar all the way to 183. One could argue that there isn’t a 19th St.”
Also MLK turns into FM969 at US HWY 183.
— FM 734 is AKA Parmer Lane
— SH 130 and SH 45 are different routes but all part of the connecting tollway so some signs imply they are one and the same
and just to really confuse people there are three different roads called SH-45. The best known is the toll road running from Hwy 183 through North Austin and Round Rock to meet up with SH-130. But there is also another SH45 which links IH-35 to SH-130 south of Austin, and finally a SH45 which connects the southern end of Mopac (Loop 1) with RR1826.
The reason for this strange numbering is that many many years ago TxDOT thought it would look pretty if they drew a big circle on the map and designate it as a proposed outer loop road around Austin. Outer loop roads rarely make sense – they take people too far out of their way, and there would have been many environmental problems building this loop as proposed, but the designation SH-45 was still applied to the sections that were found useful, once Austin had grown so much that it was no longer an Outer Loop! Even today, with no hope that the Northern and Southern roads would ever connect, TxDOT still refuse to change their numbering!
The Austin-Bergstrom Airport is, in fact, in the city limits of Austin. Del Valley is not a city, it’s a zipcode.
There are more —
Salado: Suh-LAY-doh
San Jacinto: San juh-SENT-oh
Dessau: DESS-awe
IH-35 in north Austin is also called North Interregional by some old-timers.
Guada-loop or just “the drag” near UT . And we do say Bur-NET Rd. Hell, if Texans spoke good Spanish the jail wouldn’t be “hoosegow”. My only complaint about the article is the “for some strange reason” about the rivers….a damned smart way to name the streets and learn a little geography too.