Facts about Florida

Florida State Motto

'In God We Trust'

St. Augustine

1st colony in Florida set up by Spain

Diana Nyad

64 year old is first person to swim from Cuba to Key West without a cage. Her first attempt was at age 28, and she advised others to "never give up".

Marie Selby Botanical Gardens

A 15-acre botanical garden located at 900 South Palm Avenue in Sarasota, Florida. The Gardens are located on the grounds of the former home of Marie and William Selby.

Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary

A U.S. National Marine Sanctuary in the Florida Keys. It includes the Florida Reef, the only barrier coral reef in North America and the third-largest coral barrier reef in the world. It also has extensive mangrove forest and seagrass fields.

Belleview Biltmore

A historic resort hotel located at 25 Belleview Boulevard in the town of Belleair, Florida, United States. The 400,000 square feet hotel structure was the last remaining grand historic hotel of its period in Florida that existed as a resort, and the only Henry Plant hotel still in operation when it closed in 2009.

Everglades National Park

A huge area of wetlands in southern Florida, is home to about 600 different kinds of birds and other animals.

Biscayne National Park

An American national park in southern Florida, south of Miami. The park preserves Biscayne Bay and its offshore barrier reefs. Ninety-five percent of the park is water, and the shore of the bay is the location of an extensive mangrove forest.

Tallahassee

Capital of Florida (FL)

Florida State Horse

Cracker Horse

Ron DeSantis

Florida 6th District R Foreign Affairs Oversight and Government the Judiciary

Stone Crab Claws

Fresh Florida Stone Crab Claws cracked, served over crushed ice. Served with: creamy mustard sauce, cocktail sauce, atomic horseradish, clarified butter, lemon and cocktail fork. Topped with parsley.

Florida State Shell

Horse Conch

Key Lime Pie

Made with fresh squeezed lime juice, graham crackers and roasted pecan crust, topped with fresh whipped cream

Florida State Marine Mammal

Manatee

Florida Statehood

March 3, 1845

Florida State Bird

Mockingbird

Florida State Gem

Moonstone

Florida State Saltwater Mammal

Porpoise

Cuban Sandwich

Roasted Ham, Swiss Cheese, Pickles, Mustard and Mayo on a Grilled Pressed Roll.

Florida State Tree

Sabal Palm

Florida Demographics

South: Cubans, Jews. Tarpon Springs: Greek. Mostly white, latino, and black

Juan Ponce de Leon

Spanish Explorer who discovered and named Florida while searching for the "Fountain of Youth"

Florida State Wildflower

State Wildflower

Florida State Nickname

The Sunshine State

Britton Hill

This is the highest point in Florida, at 345 feet. It is located in the northwestern part of the state near the border with Alabama, and is the lowest high point of any state in the United States.

St Johns River

This is the longest river in Florida, flowing through much of northeastern part of the state. Its widest point is nearly three miles across, and it flows northward unlike most other rivers in the region. Near its mouth, this river flows through the city of Jacksonville.

Fort Lauderdale

Where was the last battle of the second Seminole war fought

Busch Gardens Tampa

a 335-acre African-themed animal theme park located in the city of Tampa, Florida. The park is owned and operated by SeaWorld Parks& Entertainment and has an annual attendance of just over 4.1 million a year

Port Saint Lucie

a city in St. Lucie County, Florida, United States. It is the most populous municipality in the county with a population of 164,603 at the 2010 census due to its rapid growth during the 2000s. It is located 125 miles southeast of Orlando. In 2019, the United States Census Bureau estimated the city's population at 201,846.

Cape Coral

a city located in Lee County, Florida, United States, on the Gulf of Mexico. Founded in 1957 and developed as a planned community, the city grew to a population of 154,305 by the year 2010. The city's population estimate was 194,495 for 2019.

Dry Tortugas National Park

a national park in the United States about 68 miles west of Key West in the Gulf of Mexico. The park preserves Fort Jefferson and the seven Dry Tortugas islands, the westernmost and most isolated of the Florida Keys.

Calle Ocho

a one-day fiesta that culminates Carnaval Miami. It takes place in March in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami, Florida between SW 8th Street and 27th Avenue down to 9th Avenue. The festival is one of the largest in the world, and over one million visitors attend the Calle Ocho event.

Manchineel Tree

a species of flowering plant in the spurge family. Its native range stretches from tropical southern North America to northern South America. The name "manchineel", as well as the specific epithet mancinella, is from Spanish manzanilla, from the superficial resemblance of its fruit and leaves to those of an apple tree.

Florida State Reptile

alligator

George F. Smoot

an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, Nobel laureate, and one of two contestants to win the US$1 million prize on Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer with John C. Mather that led to the "discovery of the black body form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation".

Before the arrival of the Europeans in Florida, native American tribes have been living in the region for several thousand years

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Central Florida is known as the lightning capital of the United States because the region experiences more lightning strikes than anywhere else in the country.

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Florida enjoys two time zones. Gulf County, is the only county that utilizes both the Eastern and Central Time Zones.

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Florida has the highest percentage of people over 65.

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Florida has the second longest coastline of all the contiguous states.

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Florida is the flattest state in the U.S.

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Florida is the largest producer of citrus fruits in the United States.

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Florida is the winter strawberry capital of the world

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In Florida, it is illegal to confine a pregnant pig to a cage.

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St. Augustine has number of "love trees" where two different species of trees grow on, in and through one another

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The Walt Disney World Resort is in Florida. It is the planet's most visited and biggest recreational resort.

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The state also leads other states in the U.S. in tornadoes per year.

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There is no personal income tax in Florida.

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Castillo de San Marcos

i. Building labor done by Native Americans, enslaved Africans. POWs, etc. ii. "battered walls" - lower and sloped backwards to protect against canon fire. iii. Central, square plan with arrow-like projections (bastions) at corners enabling crossfire. iv. Ravelin: v-shaped outbuilding for defense. v. When remodeled, inner barrel vaults and sand were used to replace the original wood to make the structure more stable

Wakulla Springs

located 14 miles south of Tallahassee, Florida and 5 miles east of Crawfordville in Wakulla County, Florida at the crossroads of State Road 61 and State Road 267. It is protected in the Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park.

Florida State Flower

orange blossom

Kumquat

small oval citrus fruit with thin sweet rind and very acid pulp

Lake Okeechobee

the largest lake in Florida

Goliath

the largest tortoise that ever lived that resided at the Life Fellowship Bird Sanctuary in Seffner, Florida, USA from 1960-2002.

Florida House

the lower house of the Florida Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Florida, the Florida Senate being the upper house.