Gulf Coast of the United States Gulf Coast of the United States The Gulf Coast of the United States is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, and these are known as the "Gulf States". The economy of the Gulf Coast area is dominated by industries related to energy, petrochemicals, fishing, aerospace, agriculture, and tourism. The large cities of the region are (from west to east) McAllen, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Houston, Galveston, Beaumont, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile,
Offshore oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico (United States) deep-water discoveries, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement projects that oil production from the Gulf of Mexico will increase to per year by 2013. The state of Louisiana issued its first offshore oil and gas lease in 1936, and the following year the Pure Oil Company discovered the first Louisiana offshore oil field, the Creole Field, from the shore of Cameron Parish, from a platform built on timber pilings in water. Today, there are more than 4,000 production platforms and drilling rigs off the coast of Louisiana. The first offshore well in Texas was drilled in