Florid Fa

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A peninsula (Latin: paeninsula from paene "almost" and insula "island"; also called a byland or
biland) is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland.[1]
The surrounding water is usually understood to belong to a single, contiguous body,[2][3] but is
not always explicitly defined as such.[4] A peninsula can also be a headland (head), cape, island
promontory, bill, point, or spit.[5] Note that a point is generally considered a tapering piece of land
projecting into a body of water that is less prominent than a cape.[6] In English, the plural of
peninsula is peninsulas or, less commonly, peninsulae.
Florida Listeni/ˈflɒrɪdə/ is a state in the southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the
west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia, to the east by the Atlantic
Ocean, and to the south by the Straits of Florida. Florida is the 22nd most extensive, the 4th most
populous, and the 8th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state capital is
Tallahassee, the largest city is Jacksonville, and the largest metropolitan area is the Miami
metropolitan area.
Much of Florida is a peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Straits of
Florida. Its geography is notable for a coastline, omnipresent water and the threat of hurricanes.
Florida has the longest coastline in the contiguous United States, encompassing approximately
1,350 miles (2,170 km), and is the only state that borders both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic
Ocean. Much of the state is at or near sea level and is characterized by sedimentary soil. The
climate varies from subtropical in the north to tropical in the south.[8] Some of its most iconic
animals, such as the American alligator, crocodile, Florida panther and the manatee, can be
found in the Everglades National Park.
Since the first European contact was made in 1513 by Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León –
who named it La Florida ([la floˈɾiða] "Flowery Land") upon landing there during the Easter
season, Pascua Florida[9] – Florida was a challenge for the European colonial powers before it
gained statehood in the United States in 1845. It was a principal location of the Seminole Wars
against the Indians, and racial segregation after the American Civil War. Today, it is distinguished
by its large Hispanic community and high population growth, as well as its increasing
environmental concerns. Its economy relies mainly on tourism, agriculture, and transportation,
which developed in the late 19th century. Florida is also known for its amusement parks, the
production of oranges, and the Kennedy Space Center.
Florida culture is a reflection of influences and multiple inheritance; Native American, European
American, Hispanic and African American heritages can be found in the architecture and cuisine.
Florida has attracted many writers such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Ernest Hemingway and
Tennessee Williams, and continues to attract celebrities and athletes. It is internationally known
for golf, tennis, auto racing, and water sports.
Florida was the first part of what is now the continental United States to be visited by Europeans.
The earliest known European explorers came with the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de
León. According to the "500TH Florida Discovery Council Round Table", on March 3, 1513, Ponce
de Leon, organized and equipped three ships which began an expedition (with a crew of 200,
including women and free blacks), departing from Punta Aguada Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico was
the historic first gateway to the discovery of Florida, which opened the doors to the advanced
settlement of the U.S. They introduced Christianity, cattle, horses, sheep, the Spanish language
and more to Florida.[12][broken citation]
Ponce de León spotted the peninsula on April 2, 1513. According to his chroniclers, he named the
region La Florida ("flowery land") because it was then the Easter Season, known in Spanish as
Pascua Florida (roughly "Flowery Easter"), and because the vegetation was in bloom.[13] Juan
Ponce de León may not have been the first European to reach Florida, however; reportedly, at
least one indigenous tribesman whom he encountered in Florida in 1513 spoke Spanish.[14]

From 1513 onward, the land became known as La Florida. After 1630, and throughout the 18th
century, Tegesta (after the Tequesta tribe) was an alternate 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.[15][16][17]
The horse, which the natives had eaten into extinction 10,000 years ago,[18] was reintroduced
into North America with the European explorers and into Florida in 1538.[19] As the animals were
lost or stolen, they began to become feral.
Over the following century, both the Spanish and French established settlements in Florida with
varying degrees of success. In 1559, Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano established a colony at
present-day Pensacola, one of the first European attempts at settlement in the continental United
States. It was abandoned by 1561 due to hurricanes, famine, and warring tribes, and the area
was not re-inhabited until the 1690s.
French Protestant Huguenots founded Fort Caroline in modern-day Jacksonville in 1564. The
following year, the Spanish colony of St. Augustine (San Agustín) was established, and forces
from there conquered Fort Caroline that same year. The Spanish maintained tenuous control over
the region by converting the local tribes, briefly with Jesuits and later with Franciscan friars.
The area of Spanish Florida diminished with the establishment of English colonies to the north
and French colonies to the west. The English weakened Spanish power in the area by supplying
their Creek and Yamasee allies with firearms and urging them to raid the Timucuan and
Apalachee client-tribes of the Spanish. The English attacked St. Augustine, burning the city and
its cathedral to the ground several times, while the citizens hid behind the walls of the Castillo de
San Marcos.
Florida attracted numerous Africans and African Americans from the southern British colonies in
North America who sought freedom from slavery. Once in Florida, the Spanish Crown converted
them to Roman Catholicism and gave them freedom. Those freedmen settled in a community
north of St. Augustine, called Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, the first free black
settlement of its kind in what became the United States. Many of those slaves were also
welcomed by Creek and Seminole Native Americans, who had established settlements in the
region at the invitation of the Spanish government.
Great Britain gained control of Florida and other territory diplomatically in 1763 through the Peace
of Paris following its defeat of France in the Seven Years' War, and exchanges with Spain of
possessions. The British divided their new acquisitions into East Florida, with its capital at St.
Augustine, and West Florida, with its capital at Pensacola.
Britain tried to develop the Floridas through the importation of immigrants for labor, but this
project ultimately failed. Of the original seventeen British colonies, East Florida and West Florida
were two of the four colonies that did not send any representatives to Philadelphia to draft the
Declaration of Independence (Upper Canada and Lower Canada were the two other colonies that
did not send representatives.)[20] Spain received both Floridas after Britain's defeat by the
American colonies and the subsequent Treaty of Versailles in 1783, continuing the division into
East and West Florida. They offered land grants to anyone who settled in the colonies, and many
Americans moved to them.
On January 10, 1861, before the start of the American Civil War, Florida declared its secession
from the Union; ten days later, the state became a founding member of the Confederate States of
America. Nonetheless, Confederate authorities expected little in the way of help from Florida and
offered it even less. The 15,000 men it eventually offered up for service were generally sent
elsewhere and before long, Northern papers referred to the state as "the smallest tadpole in the
dirty pool of secession." The largest engagements in the state were the battle of Olustee on

February 20, 1864 and the battle of Natural Bridge, just south of Tallahassee, on March 6, 1865.
Both were Confederate victories.[26] The war ended in 1865. On June 25, 1868, Florida's
congressional representation was restored.
After Reconstruction, white Democrats succeeded in regaining power in the state legislature in
the 1870s. In 1885 they created a new constitution, followed by statutes through 1889 that
effectively disfranchised most blacks and many poor whites over the next several years.
Provisions included poll taxes, literacy tests, and residency requirements. Disfranchisement for
most African Americans in the state persisted until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s gained
federal legislation in 1965 to enforce protection of their constitutional suffrage.
20th century
Soldiers and crowds in Downtown Miami 20 minutes after Japan's surrender ending World War II
(1945).
Until the mid-20th century, Florida was the least populous Southern state. In 1900 its population
was only 528,542, of whom nearly 44% were African American.[27] The boll weevil devastated
cotton crops, and early 20th-century lynchings and racial violence caused a record number of
African Americans to leave the state in the Great Migration to northern and midwestern industrial
cities. Forty thousand blacks, roughly one-fifth of their 1900 population, left for better
opportunities.[28]
Historically, Florida's economy was based upon agricultural products such as cattle farming,
sugarcane, citrus, tomatoes, and strawberries.
Economic prosperity in the 1920s stimulated tourism to Florida and related development of hotels
and resort communities. Combined with its sudden elevation in profile was the Florida land boom
of the 1920s, which brought a brief period of intense land development. Devastating hurricanes in
1926 and 1928, followed by the stock market crash and Great Depression, brought that period to
a halt.
Florida's economy did not fully recover until the military buildup for World War II.
The climate, tempered by the growing availability of air conditioning, and low cost of living made
the state a haven. Migration from the Rust Belt and the Northeast sharply increased the
population after the war. In recent decades, more migrants have come for the jobs in a
developing economy. With a population of more than 18 million according to the 2010 census,
Florida is the most populous state in the Southeastern United States, the second most populous
state in the South behind Texas, and the fourth most populous in the United States.
Fauna
Further information: List of mammals of Florida and Snakes of Florida
An American alligator in the Florida Everglades.
Florida is host to many types of wildlife including:
Marine mammals: bottlenose dolphin, short-finned pilot whale, North Atlantic right whale, West
Indian manatee
Mammals: Florida panther, northern river otter, mink, eastern cottontail rabbit, marsh rabbit,
raccoon, striped skunk, squirrel, white-tailed deer, Key deer, bobcats, gray fox, coyote, wild boar,
Florida black bear, nine-banded armadillos, Virginia opossum
Reptiles: eastern diamondback and pygmy rattlesnakes, gopher tortoise, green and leatherback
sea turtles, and eastern indigo snake. In 2012, there were about one million American alligators
and 1,500 crocodiles.[52]
Birds: peregrine falcon,[53] bald eagle, northern caracara, snail kite, osprey, white and brown
pelicans, sea gulls, whooping and sandhill cranes, roseate spoonbill, Florida scrub jay (state

endemic), and others. One subspecies of wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo, namely subspecies
osceola, is found only in Florida.[54] The state is a wintering location for many species of eastern
North American birds.
As a result of climate change, there have been small numbers of several new species normally
native to cooler areas to the north: snowy owls, snow buntings, harlequin ducks, and razorbills.
These have been seen in the northern part of the state.[55]
Invertebrates: carpenter ants, termites, American cockroach, Africanized bees, the Miami blue
butterfly, and the grizzled mantis.
The only known calving area for the northern right whale is off the coasts of Florida and Georgia.
[56]
The native bear population has risen from a historic low of 300 in the 1970s, to 3,000 in 2011.[57]
Since their accidental importation from South America into North America in the 1930s, the red
imported fire ant population has increased its territorial range to include most of the Southern
United States, including Florida. They are more aggressive than most native ant species and
have a painful sting.[58]
A number of non-native snakes and lizards have been released in the wild. In 2010 the state
created a hunting season for Burmese and Indian pythons, African rock pythons, green
anacondas, and Nile monitor lizards.[59] Green iguanas have also established a firm population
in the southern part of the state.
There are about 500,000 feral pigs in Florida.[60]

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