Lower Rio Grande Valley

Lower Rio Grande Valley (Spanish: Valle del Río Grande), often referred to as the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) of South Texas, is a region located in the southernmost part of Texas, along the northern bank of the Rio Grande. It is also known locally as the Valley or the 956 (the area code for the region). It is a region spanning the border of Texas and Mexico located in a floodplain of the Rio Grande near its mouth. The region includes the southernmost tip of South Texas and a portion of northern Tamaulipas, Mexico. In the United States, it consists of the Brownsville-Harlingen and McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metropolitan areas, and the Rio Grande City-Roma and Raymondville micropolitan areas. In Mexico, it consists of the Matamoros, Río Bravo, and Reynosa metropolitan areas. The area is generally bilingual in English and Spanish, with a fair amount of Spanglish due to the region's diverse history and transborder agglomerations. It is home to some of the poorest cities in the nation, as well as many unincorporated, persistent poverty communities called colonias. A large seasonal influx occurs of "winter Texans" – people who come down from the north for the winter and then return north before summer arrives.