Ponce de León’s “flowery Easter” named a tropical U.S. peninsula
Florida, a southeastern U.S. state between Gulf and Atlantic, is two-thirds a peninsula toward the Straits and Bahamas. Juan Ponce de León landed in 1513, calling it La Pascua Florida for its verdant Easter landscape; Native peoples had lived there at least 14,000 years.
Alabama lies to the north-west and Georgia to the north. No other state touches both the Gulf and the Atlantic, and its roughly 2,170-kilometre coastline, not counting barrier islands, is the longest in the lower 48. More than 23 million residents make it the third most populous state and seventh densest as of 2020, on 170,310 square kilometres, 22nd in size. The Miami area, with Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, is the largest metropolis.
By the sixteenth century the Apalachee held the Panhandle, the Timucua the north and centre, the Ais the central Atlantic shore, the Mayaimi the area around Lake Okeechobee, the Tequesta the south-east and the Calusa the south-west. Ponce de León's name recalled the Spanish Easter season, Pascua Florida, festival of flowers. Spain founded St Augustine in 1565, the oldest continuously inhabited European-founded settlement in the country. Britain coveted the region throughout the eighteenth century and held it from 1763 until Spain regained it in 1783 after the American Revolutionary War.
Since the mid-twentieth century growth has been rapid. Gross state product of 1.647 trillion dollars is fourth among US states and fifteenth among world economies, driven by tourism, hospitality, farming, real estate and transport. Miami Beach, the Kennedy Space Center and Disney's Orlando resort pull in tens of millions of visitors, and retirees, snowbirds and migrants keep arriving.
The north is subtropical and the south fully tropical, a climate otherwise found only in Hawaii among the states; and Florida is the only continental state with a coral reef: the Florida Reef, third-largest barrier system in the world after Australia's and Belize's. The Everglades form the biggest tropical wilderness in the US. Alligators, crocodiles, flamingos, roseate spoonbills, Florida panthers and manatees all live here.
Source: Florida
