Port Aransas ( ə-RAN-zəs) is a city in Nueces County, Texas, United States. This city is 180 miles southeast of San Antonio. The population was 2,904 at the 2020 census. Port Aransas is the only traditional town on Mustang Island. It is located north of Padre Island and is one of the longest barrier islands along the Texas coast. Corpus Christi Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, the Lydia Ann Ship Channel, and the Corpus Christi Ship Channel make in the works the surrounding waters.

The Karankawa Indians were animate a nomadic existence in the region bearing in mind Spaniards, led by Alonso Álvarez de Pineda, probed the coast in 1519. Governor Francisco de Garay of Jamaica had commissioned him to explore the Gulf Coast from Florida to Vera Cruz. In the summer of 1519, Piñeda, took a fleet of four ships east to west on the subject of the Gulf Coast exploring and mapping five passes along the Texas coastline, including what is known today as Aransas Pass.

In 1720, French pioneer Pierre-Jean de Béranger was commissioned to dissect St. Bernard Bay “Matagorda Bay” to pronounce a colony for France along its shores. Jean took an outmoded Spanish boat that had been captured in Florida during the case with Spain, christened it St. Joseph, and his travels resulted in the rediscovery of the Aransas Pass.

In 1739, Governor Prudencio de Orobio y Basterra named the pass Aránzazu Pass upon his map of 1739, because it served the Aránzazu fort. The publicize was altered to Aransas on the map of a Captain Monroe of the ship Amos Wright in 1833.