Portal:Florida

  

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Flag of Florida
Florida's location within the United States

Florida (IPA: /ˈflɒrɪdə/) is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. Most of the state is a large peninsula with the Gulf of Mexico on its west and the Atlantic Ocean on its east. Much of the state has a humid subtropical climate; southern Florida has a tropical climate. Florida was named by Juan Ponce de León, who landed on the peninsula on 2 April 1513, during Pascua Florida (Spanish for "Flowery Easter," referring to the Easter season). Florida is the fourth most populous state in the country.

Archaeological research indicates that Florida had been inhabited for thousands of years before any European settlements. Of the many indigenous peoples, the largest known were the Ais, the Apalachee, the Calusa, the Timucua and the Tocobago tribes. Juan Ponce de León, a Spanish conquistador, named Florida in honor of his discovery of the land on April 2, 1513, during Pascua Florida, a Spanish term for the Easter season (Juan Ponce de León may not have been the first European to reach Florida; according to one report, at least one indigenous tribesman who he encountered in Florida in 1513 spoke Spanish.) From that date forward, the land became known as "La Florida" , although from 1630 until the 19th century Tegesta (after the Tequesta tribe) was the name of choice for the Florida peninsula following publication of a map by the Dutch cartographer Hessel Gerritsz in Joannes de Laet's History of the New World. Over the following century, both the Spanish and French established settlements in Florida, with varying degrees of success. In 1559, Spanish Pensacola was sam so fine following year.

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Osceola, a Seminole leader
The Second Seminole War, also known as the Florida War, was a conflict from 1835 to 1842 in Florida between various groups of Native Americans collectively known as Seminoles and the United States, part of a series of conflicts called the Seminole Wars. The Second Seminole War, often referred to as the Seminole War, was the most expensive Indian war fought by the United States, and lasted longer than any war involving the United States between the American Revolution and the Vietnam War.

The United States acquired Florida from Spain via the Adams-Onís Treaty and took possession in 1821. Bands from various tribes in the southeastern United States had moved into the unoccupied lands in Florida in the preceding century. These included Alabamas, Choctaws, Yamasees, Yuchis and Creek people. The Creeks were the largest group, and included Lower Creeks and Upper Creeks, and both Hitchiti- and Muscogee-speakers. One group of Hitchiti-speakers, the Mikasuki, settled around what is now Lake Miccosukee near Tallahassee. Another group of Hitchiti-speakers settled around the Alachua Prairie in what is now Alachua County. The Spanish in St. Augustine began calling the Alachua Creeks Cimarrones, which roughly meant "wild ones" or "runaways", and which is the probable origin of "Seminole". This name was eventually also applied to the other groups in Florida, although the Indians still regarded themselves as members of different tribes.

  

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St. Petersburg Pier at sunset
Credit: Texx Smith

The St. Petersburg Pier, simply called "The Pier" by locals, is a major tourist destination in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. Some of the activities and sights it encompasses include: fishing, boat rentals, weekly festivals, and the pier aquarium. Shopping, dining and nightlife are other amenities.

  

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Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American folklorist and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance, best known for the 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston was "purposefully inconsistent in the birth dates she dispensed during her lifetime, most of which were fictitious." For a long time, scholars believed that she was born in Eatonville, Florida in 1901. In the 1990s, a filmmaker established that Hurston had been born in Notasulga, Alabama and moved to Eatonville at a young age, spending the remainder of her childhood there. It was Eatonville, the first all-Black town to be incorporated in the United States, that inspired her imagination.

Zora was the fifth of eight children of John Hurston and Lucy Ann Hurston. Her father was a Baptist preacher, tenant farmer, and carpenter, and her mother was a schoolteacher. When she was three, Zora's family moved to Eatonville, an all-Black town with a population of 125. Her father later became mayor of the town, which Zora would glorify in her stories as a place black Americans could live as they desired, independent of white society. The death of her mother in 1904, when Zora was thirteen, was a devastating event for Zora as she was "passed around the family like a bad penny" by her father for the next several years.

  

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One of the two completed sections of the Barge Canal
  

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Kendrick Meek
The people of Florida in 2002 voted and approved class size limits in Florida to make sure that the State pays for smaller class sizes and not local districts
  

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The skyline of Boca Raton
Credit: ReignMan

Boca Raton ("bōkə rə-tōn") is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida incorporated in May 1925. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 74,764; the 2006 population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau was 86,396.

  

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Counties: Alachua • Baker • Bay • Bradford • Brevard • Broward • Calhoun • Charlotte • Citrus • Clay • Collier • Columbia • DeSoto • Dixie • Duval • Escambia • Flagler • Franklin • Gadsen • Gilchrist • Glades • Gul • Hamilton • Hardee • Hendry• Hernando • Highlands • Hillsborough • Holmes • Indian River • Jackson • Jefferson • Lafayette • Lake • Lee • Leon • Levy • Liberty • Madison • Manatee • Marion • Martin • Miami-Dade • Monroe • Nassau • Okaloosa • Okeechobee • Orange • Osceola • Palm Beach • Pasco • Pinellas • Polk • Putnam • Saint Johns • Saint Lucie • Santa Rosa • Sarasota• Seminole• Sumter • Suwannee • Taylor• Union • Volusia • Wakulla • Walton • Washington

Regions of Florida: Apalachee Province • Big Bend • Central Florida • Emerald Coast • First Coast • Florida Heartland • Florida Keys • Florida Panhandle • Florida Suncoast • Gold Coast • Nature Coast • North Central Florida • Red Hills Region • Southwest Florida • Space Coast • Tampa Bay Area • Treasure Coast

Education in Florida: Broadway Theater Project • Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers • Congrès de la Culture Francaise en Floride • DLLI • FTCE • Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test • Florida Distance Learning Consortium • Florida Literacy Coalition, Inc. • Florida Music Educators Association • High School Competency Test • Silver Knight Awards • Stenotype Institute

Transportation in Florida: Apalachee Parkway • Capital Circle, Tallahassee • Conners Highway • Florida Department of Transportation • John Anderson Highway • List of Florida paved bike trails • Miami-Dade Expressway Authority • Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority • Peninsular Land, Transportation and Manufacturing Company • South Florida Auto Show • SunPass • Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority • Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority • Volusia County Public Transit System
  

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  • This page was last modified on 19 November 2008, at 06:41.

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