University Park, TX

6425 Boaz Ln, Dallas, TX

Last updated 8/27/2026

University Park takes its name directly from Southern Methodist University, whose main campus sits almost entirely within the small town's borders — a genuinely unusual arrangement in which a private university's campus occupies a substantial share of the land area of the independent municipality surrounding it. Like its twin town Highland Park, University Park incorporated as its own independent city specifically to remain outside Dallas's municipal boundaries even as the larger city grew to completely surround both towns, and the two together form the "Park Cities," sharing a combined school district, the Highland Park Independent School District, despite each maintaining separate city governments. SMU's campus brings a genuine college-town element to University Park's identity, with the university's Meadows Museum housing one of the most significant collections of Spanish art outside of Spain itself, and campus events and athletics drawing visitors into the town well beyond its own roughly 25,000 residents. University Park's combination of hosting a major private university's entire main campus, shared independent-city status alongside Highland Park, and a top-ranked shared school district has made it one of the most academically and architecturally distinctive small towns anywhere in the Dallas metropolitan area.

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