More hurricanes have made landfall in Florida than anywhere else in the world. .No other state has suffered as many hurricanes as Florida--58 have made landfall since 1900.

Miami Beach passed its first zoning ordinance to regulate new development in 1933 because most of the land had been sold to investors.
By Bryan Henry
illustrations by BoseArts

No part of the state of Florida is more than 75 miles from Atlantic or Gulf waters.

At
least
60
species
of
mosquitoes
live in
Florida.
Sawgrass, endless stretches of which fill the Florida Everglades, is not a grass at all but a member of the sedge family.
The Apalachicola River is the only river in Florida to receive snow melt from the Georgia mountains by way of the Chattahoochee River.

Florida's Sanibel and Captiva islands are home to more than 400 species of seashells.

There are more than 800 keys stretching from Biscayne Bay in Miami to the Dry Tortugas.
There are 882 islands in the Florida Keys. Florida has 4,510 islands that are 10 acres or larger in size, the second highest total in the U.S. behind Alaska. The Florida reef tract, extending from Key Biscayne to the Dry Tortugas (200 miles), contains approximately 6,000 coral reefs.

In 1890, Key West was the most populous city in Florida.

Juan Ponce de Leon was one of Florida's first tourists, arriving near St. Augustine in 1513. He was killed by Indians in 1521 while attempting to establish a colony near Ft. Myers.
The Gulf Stream varies in width from the narrow 40-mile wrist off Miami to a 160-to 200-mile-wide bicep several hundred miles east of New Jersey.


Ocean water is bluest where there is the least sea life.


Jewish women in the 19th century made their dishes kosher by washing them with seawater in Pensacola and Miami Beach.

Florida is the only state to designate two fish as state symbols--the largemouth bass and the sailfish (1975).
Coral Gables was one of the first completely planned communities in the United States.
The town of Davie in Broward County was originally called Zona because many early residents had worked on the Panama Canal. Its name was changed when it was incorporated in 1925 to honor developer R.P. Davie.

Orange juice was made the official state beverage in 1967.
Every person is heavier at low tide. Due to the saltwater content of our bodies, we lose a fraction of a pound with each rise of the tide, and gain it back when the tide recedes.