Beltway 8 (BW8), the Sam Houston Parkway, along with the Sam Houston Tollway, is an 88-mile (142 km) beltway around the city of Houston, Texas, United States, lying entirely within Harris County.

Houston is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the seat and largest city of Harris County; as well as the principal city of the Greater Houston metropolitan area, which is the fifth-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States and the second-most populous in Texas after Dallas–Fort Worth. With a population of 2,302,878 in 2022, Houston is the fourth-most populous city in the United States after New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and the seventh-most populous city in North America. Houston is the southeast anchor of the greater megaregion known as the Texas Triangle.