South Beach. Little Havana. Little Haiti. Coral Gables. Key Biscayne. The Everglades. Gloria Estefan. Camila Cabello. Pitbull. Miami Vice. Old people (like The Golden Girls). Tourism. You already knew all that. But here are 10 things you didn’t know about Miami.
1
A woman named Julia Tuttle—originally from Cleveland and known as the Mother of Miami—saw the area’s potential and convinced the powers that be to extend the Florida East Coast Railway down south. That paved the way for Miami’s incorporation in 1896, at which time the city had a population of just over 300. It’s come a long way since then, and the metropolitan area now boasts 6.1 million residents, making it the ninth largest in the US.
2
Prior to the above, Florida had exchanged hands many times, starting with Native groups, then Spain, then Britain, then Spain again after the American Revolution, and finally the US. Yet people are surprised by all the Spanish in Miami?
3
Fidel Castro’s rise to power in 1959 drove many Cubans to Miami, adding even more culture (and Spanish) to the mix.
4
The potpourri of cultural influences, many hailing from the Caribbean (which itself had been influenced by basically everywhere), gave birth to something called Floribbean cuisine. If you’re not one for fusion, you should look elsewhere—and probably crack a history book every now and then.
5
Miami is the largest metropolitan area in the nation’s flattest state. With an average elevation of 6 feet above sea level and a location on (in?) the Atlantic Ocean, ignoring the rising water level is probably a bad idea for the Magic City.
6
The Port of Miami, also known as PortMiami, is the second-busiest passenger port in the world (behind Port Canaveral), explaining why a bunch of cruise lines are headquartered in the area. Perhaps the cause and effect is the other way around, but you get the point.
7
A 2016 study of 550 American cities with populations of 65,000 or more that accounted for things like crime, poverty, income inequality, education, and housing costs identified the city of Miami (population 442,000) as the worst in the country.
8
Miamians do apparently engage in intellectual pursuits. In fact, the region was previously noted to have the sixth-most college students in the US, outdoing what would be expected by population alone.
9
They apparently work as well, evidenced by Miami having something like the 27th-largest metropolitan GDP in the world.
10
Finally, according to some sources, Jackson Memorial Hospital—affiliated with the University of Miami—is the largest hospital in the US. But don’t worry—if it’s been overtaken, it wasn’t the greatest tourist attraction anyway.
The bottom line—whether you’re looking to love it or hate it, Miami’s got your back.
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