The Golden Triangle is an area of Southeast Texas between the cities of Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange. The "golden" refers to the wealth that came from the Spindletop oil strike in Beaumont in 1901. More recently from the many gas flares that are located at all of the local oil refineries, which creates a rough triangular shape around the area when viewed from nighttime aircraft. The term more generally refers now to the entire Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange metropolitan area, forming the triangle.