Brazos Island, also known as Brazos Santiago Island, is a barrier island on the Gulf Coast of Texas in the United States, south of the town of South Padre Island and north of the city of Starbase. The island is located in Cameron County.
Brazos Santiago Pass partitions the barrier islands of Brazos Island and Padre Island in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
The Texas barrier islands are a chain of barrier islands in the Gulf of Mexico along the Texas Gulf Coast. The islands enclose a series of estuaries along the Texas coast and attract tourists for activities such as recreational fishing and dolphin watching. The seven barrier islands, listed from northeast to southwest, are Galveston Island, Follet's Island, Matagorda Island, San José Island, Mustang Island, Padre Island, and Brazos Island.
Padre Island is the world's largest barrier island, with a length of 113 miles (182 km). Since 1962 Padre Island has been divided in two by the dredging of the Port Mansfield Channel roughly 30 miles (48 km) north of the south end of the island, which separated it into portions referred to as South Padre Island and North Padre Island.
Padre Island is the largest of the Texas barrier islands and the world's longest barrier island. The island is located along Texas's southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico and is noted for its white sandy beaches. Meaning father in Spanish, it was named after Father José Nicolás Ballí (c.1770-1829), who owned the island and served as a missionary priest and collector of finances for all the churches in the Rio Grande Valley. He also founded the first mission in present-day Cameron County.
Padre Island is the second-largest island by area in the contiguous United States, after Long Island in New York on the Atlantic Coast. It is about 113 miles (182 km) long and 1.8 miles (3 km) wide, stretching from the city of Corpus Christi, in the north, to the resort community of South Padre Island in the south. The island is oriented north-south, bordered by the Gulf of Mexico on the east and Laguna Madre on the west. The island's northern end connects to Mustang Island by roadway. The southern end of the island is separated from Brazos Island by the Brazos Santiago Pass.