 thumb|logo on ford f150 king ranch, located in south texas between corpus christi and brownsville, is one of the largest ranches in the world. (the world's largest is the 6,000,000 acre anna creek station in australia, and the largest contiguous u.s. ranch is the waggoner ranch near vernon, texas.) the king ranch comprises  and was founded in 1853 by captain richard king and gideon k. lewis, includes portions of six texas counties, including most of kleberg county and much of kenedy county, with portions extending into brooks, jim wells, nueces, and willacy counties. the ranch does not consist of one single contiguous plot of land, but rather four large sections called divisions. the divisions are the santa gertrudis, the laureles, the encino and the norias. only the first two of the four divisions border each other, and that border is relatively short. the ranch was designated a national historic landmark in 1961.note: a national register of historic places inventory-nomination document should be available upon request from the national park service for this site, but it appears not to be available on-line from the nps focus search site. ==history== richard king (1824â1885) was a river pilot, born in new york city to irish immigrants. he was indentured to a jeweler at age 11, but later ran to sea,{{ref|lea_p2}
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