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 825,000 acres (3,340 km²; 1,289 sq mi) 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.