[8] It is bordered to the west by the city of McAllen, to the north by Edinburg, the county seat, to the east by San Juan, and to the southwest by Hidalgo.

The Pharr city limits extend south in a narrow band to the Rio Grande and the Pharr–Reynosa International Bridge into Mexico.

[9] For a number of years, centering around early 1900, Henry N. Pharr was director of the State National Bank of New Iberia, Louisiana, and was a former president of the Louisiana–Rio Grande Sugar Company and the Louisiana–Rio Grande Canal Company, which at one time owned 8,000 acres (32.4 km2) and which, in 1910, built the town of Pharr on this land.

[13] Pharr has a humid subtropical climate, similar to that of the Tampa Bay Area of Florida, but with less precipitation and slightly higher summer maximum temperatures.

The warm season is long, with average highs and lows similar to August's from June through September.

As September is the peak of the north Atlantic hurricane season and tropical storms and hurricanes occasionally drop copious amounts of rainfall on the region, this month tends to be by far the wettest, averaging 3.6 inches (91 mm) of precipitation.

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 79,715 people, 22,668 households, and 18,420 families residing in the city.

The Innovation and Technology Department operates its official website (http://pharr-tx.gov), as well as its local government television on Time Warner Cable channel 17.12.

All current social media platforms are used to allow for interactive governmental operations.

[20] A small fringe portion of the city is a part of the Hidalgo Independent School District.

Another small portion is a part of the Valley View Independent School District, which has one campus with around 2,000 students.