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Salineño is a census-designated place on the Rio Grande in western Starr County, Texas, about twelve miles northwest of Roma and two miles from State Highway 83.

Salineño is one of the oldest communities in South Texas — a roughly 250-year-old settlement that began as the headquarters of Rancho Salinas, near an ancient Indigenous river crossing of the Rio Grande that was used until bridges were built.

Ranching in the Salineño area began in 1734, and by 1757 five local ranches held about 4,000 horses and cattle and 40,000 sheep and goats.

The area was part of the Spanish province of Nuevo Santander, then of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, and only became part of Texas in 1848 after the Mexican-American War.

By 1900 a ranch school in Salineño taught nineteen pupils in grades one through four with a single Spanish-speaking teacher, and a mission church was established in 1906 after years of visits by traveling Oblate priests.

Completion of Falcon Dam in the early 1950s transformed the community, and its schools were consolidated into the Roma Independent School District.

Salineño's name officially gained its tilde — changing from 'Salineno' to 'Salineño' — in 2008, and the accented spelling was used from the 2010 census onward.

Salineño first appeared as a census-designated place in the 2000 census with 304 residents, but the CDP lost land before the 2010 census and now covers only about 0.1 square miles, with 201 residents in 2010 and 176 in 2020 — a density of roughly 1,800 people per square mile.

In 1990, before CDP status, the Handbook of Texas described Salineño with three stores, a church, a post office, a waterworks, a well-kept cemetery, and 155 inhabitants, most of them ranch workers and migrant farm laborers.