America's Sunshine Capital, Miami is the world's year-round vacation destination, thanks to its tropical climate and wide-ranging recreational opportunities. Miami, located in the southeastern corner of the United States near the tip of the Florida peninsula along the Atlantic Ocean, Miami is where Florida's Gold Coast Megalopolis begins. The famous suburban attractions that ring Miami include Miami Beach, Hialeah, Coral Gables, and North Miami Beach.
Much of Miami’s recent growth has resulted from its large and active Cuban community. The city’s multicultural population is estimated at more than 370,000. In addition to tourism, Miami has diversified its economy to become a major center of banking and finance, light industry, fishing, and transportation. Its impressive fleet of luxury cruise ships makes it one of the world's leading passenger ports. The area is served by the Miami International Airport, Amtrak, a commuter rail, and a major interstate highway system.
What makes this world-class city an exciting mecca for tourists is, in addition to its beautiful beaches, its reputation as an international crossroads of commerce, culture, outdoor activities, dining, entertainment, shopping, and conventions. Miami is known for its wide variety of dance clubs, ranging from ballet to Flamenco to modern dance, and its music, from classical to jazz. Attractions include the Coconut Grove Playhouse, the Miami City Ballet, the award-winning Area Stage and City Theater, the Florida Shakespeare Theater, the Teatro Avanti which produces the annual International Hispanic Theater Festival, the Florida Grand Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra, the New World Symphony, and the Miami Chamber Symphony.
Popular points of interest are the Miami Art Museum, the MetroZoo, the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, the Miami Museum of Science, the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, the Parrot Jungle, the Miami Seaquarium, the Tropical Gardens, the historic Venetian Pool in Coral Gables. For sports enthusiasts, the area offers the Miami Dolphins NFL team, the Miami Marlins baseball club, the Miami Heat NBA team, the Florida Panthers hockey team, and the Orange Bowl.
The Miami region was occupied by the Calusa or Tequesta people before the Europeans arrived in 1567, when Spanish settlers built a mission at the mouth of the Miami River, from which the city derived its name, a native American term meaning big water. The area was a wilderness when the United States gained control of Florida in 1821, although homesteaders had begun to settle along Biscayne Bay. Arrival of the railroad in 1896 stimulated real estate development. The city was incorporated and became a transportation hub. Despite the hurricanes and the Great Depression, Miami grew in the early 1900s, and after World War II it became a leading resort. Thousands of Cuban refugees settled in the city following Castro’s takeover of Cuba in 1959.