Everglades in the context of River

A coastal plain (also coastal plains, coastal lowland, coastal lowlands) is an area of flat, low-lying land adjacent to a sea coast. A fall line commonly marks the border between a coastal plain and an upland area.

A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (Africa; Jupiter; Sarah; Microsoft) as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (continent, planet, person, corporation) and may be used when referring to instances of a specific class (a continent, another planet, these persons, our corporation). Some proper nouns occur in plural form (optionally or exclusively), and then they refer to groups of entities considered as unique (the Hendersons, the Everglades, the Azores, the Pleiades). Proper nouns can also occur in secondary applications, for example modifying nouns (the Mozart experience; his Azores adventure), or in the role of common nouns (he's no Pavarotti; a few would-be Napoleons). The detailed definition of the term is problematic and, to an extent, governed by convention.

A distinction is normally made in current linguistics between proper nouns and proper names. By this strict distinction, because the term noun is used for a class of single words (tree, beauty), only single-word proper names are proper nouns: Peter and Africa are both proper names and proper nouns; but Peter the Great and South Africa, while they are proper names, are not proper nouns. The term common name is not much used to contrast with proper name, but some linguists have used it for that purpose. While proper names are sometimes called simply names, this term is often used more broadly: "An earlier name for tungsten was wolfram." Words derived from proper names are occasionally called proper adjectives (or proper adverbs, and so on), but not in mainstream linguistic theory. Not every noun phrase that refers to a unique entity is a proper name. For example, chastity is a common noun even though chastity is considered a unique abstract entity (constrasted with the personal name Chastity, which is a proper name).

Flooded grasslands and savannas is a terrestrial biome of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) biogeographical system, consisting of large expanses or complexes of flooded grasslands. These areas support numerous plants and animals adapted to the unique hydrologic regimes and soil conditions. Large congregations of migratory and resident waterbirds may be found in these regions. The relative importance of these habitat types for these birds as well as more migratory animals typically varies, as the availability of water and productivity annually and seasonally shifts among complexes of smaller and larger wetlands throughout a region.

This habitat type is found in Asia, Africa, North America and South America. Some globally outstanding flooded savannas and grasslands occur in the Everglades, Pantanal, Lake Chad flooded savanna, Zambezian flooded grasslands, and the Sudd. The Everglades, with an area of 7,800 sq mi (20,000 km), are the world's largest rain-fed flooded grassland on a limestone substrate, and feature some 11,000 species of seed-bearing plants, 25 varieties of orchids, 300 bird species, and 150 fish species. The Pantanal, with an area of 187,818 km (72,517 sq mi), is the largest flooded grassland on Earth, supporting over 260 species of fish, 700 birds, 90 mammals, 160 reptiles, 45 amphibians, 1,000 butterflies, and 1,600 species of plants. The flooded savannas and grasslands are generally the largest complexes in each region.

The Kissimmee River is a river in south-central Florida, United States that forms the north part of the Everglades wetlands area. The river begins at East Lake Tohopekaliga south of Orlando, flowing south through Lake Kissimmee into the large, shallow Lake Okeechobee. Hurricane-related floods in 1947 prompted channelization of the meandering lower stretch, completed by 1970. The straightened course reduced wetland habitat and worsened pollution. In response, efforts since the 1990s have partially restored the river's original state and revitalized the ecosystem, as part of the broader restoration of the Everglades.

Florida Bay is the bay located between the southern end of the Florida mainland (the Florida Everglades) and the Florida Keys in the United States. It is a large, shallow estuary that while connected to the Gulf of Mexico, has limited exchange of water due to shallow mudbanks dividing the bay into many basins or lakes. The banks separate the bay into basins, each with its own unique physical characteristics.

The Calusa (/kəˈluːsə/ kə-LOO-sə, Calusa: *ka(ra)luś(i)) were a Native American people of Florida's southwest coast. Calusa society developed from that of archaic peoples of the Everglades region. Previous Indigenous cultures had lived in the area for thousands of years.

At the time of European contact in the 16th and 17th centuries, the historic Calusa were the people of the Caloosahatchee culture. They developed a complex culture based on estuarine fisheries rather than agriculture. Their principal city of Calos was probably at Mound Key, and their territory reached at least from Charlotte Harbor to Marco Island. Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, a Spaniard who was held captive by Florida Indians from 1545 until 1566, described the Calusa realm as extending from Tanpa, at the mouth of Charlotte Harbor, down the coast to Muspa, at the southern end of Marco Island, and inland to Guacata on Lake Mayaimi (Lake Okeechobee). They had the highest population density of South Florida; estimates of total population at the time of European contact range from 10,000 to several times that, but these are speculative.

The Muscogee (English: /məsˈkoʊɡiː/ məss-KOH-ghee), Mvskoke or Mvskokvlke (Mvskokvlke, pronounced [mə̀skóːɡə̂lɡì] in the Muscogee language), also known as Muscogee Creek or just Creek, are a group of related Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands in the United States. Their historical homelands are in what now comprises southern Tennessee, much of Alabama, western Georgia and parts of northern Florida.

Most of the Muscogee people were forcibly removed to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) by the federal government in the 1830s during the Trail of Tears. A small group of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy remained in Alabama, and their descendants formed the federally recognized Poarch Band of Creek Indians. Another Muscogee group moved into Florida between roughly 1767 and 1821, trying to evade European encroachment, and intermarried with local tribes to form the Seminole. Through ethnogenesis, the Seminole emerged with a separate identity from the rest of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy. The great majority of Seminole were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory in the late 1830s, where their descendants later formed federally recognized tribes. Some of the Seminole, with the Miccosukee moved south into the Everglades, resisting removal. These two tribes gained federal recognition in the 20th century and remain in Florida.

The Miami metropolitan area, officially known as the Miami–Fort Lauderdale–West Palm Beach Metropolitan Statistical Area, is a coastal metropolitan area in southeastern Florida. It is the sixth-largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the United States, the third-largest metropolitan area in the Southern United States, and the largest metropolitan area in Florida. It is also known as South Florida, SoFlo, SoFla, the Gold Coast, Southeast Florida, the Tri-County Area, or Greater Miami. With a population of 6.45 million, its population exceeds 31 of the nation's 50 states as of 2023. It comprises the three most populated counties in the state, Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and Palm Beach County. Miami-Dade County, with 2,701,767 people in 2020, is the seventh-most populous county in the United States.

Miami is the region's financial and cultural core and most populous city. According to the Global and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) classification Miami is an "Alpha minus" city and is considered a very important world city that links the major economic region of South Florida into the world economy. The Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI 37) ranked Miami as the world's 26th most important finance center as of May 2025, ranking 7th in the United States only behind New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Boston. Other principal cities, as defined by the Office of Management and Budget, include Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Pompano Beach, Boca Raton, Sunrise, Deerfield Beach, Miami Beach, Kendall, Doral, Delray Beach, Jupiter, and Palm Beach Gardens. The Miami metropolitan area is part of the larger South Florida region of the state, which also includes the Everglades and the Florida Keys.

South Florida, sometimes colloquially shortened to SoFlo, is the southernmost region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is one of Florida's three most commonly referred to directional regions; the two others are Central Florida and North Florida. South Florida is the southernmost part of the continental United States and the only region of the continental U.S. that includes some areas with a tropical climate.

South Florida is dominated by the Miami metropolitan area and the Everglades. It also contains the Florida Keys; three U.S. national parks: Biscayne, Dry Tortugas, and Everglades; and multiple cities.

The Atlantic Plain is one of eight distinct physiographic divisions of the contiguous United States. Using the USGS physiographic classification system, the Atlantic Plain division comprises two provinces and six sections. The Coastal Plain province is differentiated from the Continental Shelf province simply based on the portion of the land mass above and below sea level.

The lands adjacent to the Atlantic coastline are made up of sandy beaches, marshlands, bays, and barrier islands. It is the flattest of the U.S. physiographic divisions and stretches over 2,200 miles (3,500 km) in length from Cape Cod to the Mexican border and southward an additional 1,000 miles (1,600 km) to the Yucatán Peninsula. The central and southern Atlantic Coast is characterized by barrier and drowned valley coasts. The coastal Atlantic plain features nearly continuous barriers interrupted by inlets, large embayments with drowned river valleys, and extensive wetlands and marshes. The Atlantic plain slopes gently seaward from the inland highlands in a series of terraces. This gentle slope continues far into the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, forming the continental shelf. The relief at the land-sea interface is so low that the boundary between them is often blurry and indistinct, especially along stretches of the Louisiana bayous and the Florida Everglades.

An ongoing effort to remedy damage inflicted during the 20th century on the Everglades, a region of tropical wetlands in southern Florida, is the most expensive and comprehensive environmental repair attempt in history. The degradation of the Everglades became an issue in the United States in the early 1970s after a proposal to construct an airport in the Big Cypress Swamp. Studies indicated the airport would have destroyed the ecosystem in South Florida and Everglades National Park. After decades of destructive practices, both state and federal agencies are looking for ways to balance the needs of the natural environment in South Florida with urban and agricultural centers that have recently and rapidly grown in and near the Everglades. On June 27, 2025, a coalition led by Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians filed suit in a federal court seeking an injunction against the installation of an immigration detention camp until a full environmental review and public-comment period are completed. Plaintiffs argue the project threatens endangered species habitat, including that of the Florida Panther, and violates both the National Environmental Policy Act and tribal cultural-resource protections.

In response to floods caused by hurricanes in 1947, the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project (C&SF) was established to construct flood control devices in the Everglades. The C&SF built 1,400 miles (2,300 km) of canals and levees between the 1950s and 1971 throughout South Florida. Their last venture was the C-38 canal, which straightened the Kissimmee River and caused catastrophic damage to animal habitats, adversely affecting water quality in the region. The canal became the first C&SF project to revert when the 22-mile (35 km) canal began to be backfilled, or refilled with the material excavated from it, in the 1980s.

Doral is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. One of 34 municipalities in the county, it is a principal city in the Miami metropolitan area that is located 5 miles (8 km) west of Miami International Airport and 13 miles (21 km) west of Downtown Miami. Doral occupies 15 square miles (39 km) bordered on the west by the Ronald Reagan Turnpike and the Florida Everglades, on the north by the town of Medley, on the east by the Palmetto Expressway and on the south by the Dolphin Expressway and the city of Sweetwater. The city is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida. As of the 2020 census, Doral had a population of 75,874, up from 45,704 in 2010.

Doral has operated under the mayor-council-manager form of government since incorporation. Policymaking and legislative authority are vested in a governing council consisting of the mayor and four other councilmembers. The council, which is elected at large, is responsible for passing ordinances and resolutions, adopting the annual budget, and appointing the city manager, city clerk and city attorney. The city manager is responsible for carrying out the council's policies and ordinances, overseeing the government's daily operations, and appointing the heads of various departments.

Everglades National Park is a United States national park that protects the southern twenty percent of the original Everglades in Florida. The park is the largest tropical wilderness in the United States and the largest wilderness of any kind east of the Mississippi River. An average of one million people visit the park each year. Everglades is the third-largest national park in the contiguous United States after Death Valley and Yellowstone. It was declared a national park in 1947. UNESCO declared the Everglades & Dry Tortugas Biosphere Reserve in 1976 and listed the park as a World Heritage Site in 1979, and the Ramsar Convention included the park on its list of Wetlands of International Importance in 1987. Everglades is one of only three locations in the world to appear on all three lists.

Most national parks preserve unique geographic features; Everglades National Park was the first created to protect a fragile ecosystem. The Everglades are a network of wetlands and forests fed by a river flowing 0.25 miles (0.40 km) per day out of Lake Okeechobee, southwest into Florida Bay. The park is the most significant breeding ground for tropical wading birds in North America and contains the largest mangrove ecosystem in the Western Hemisphere. Thirty-six threatened or protected species inhabit the park, including the Florida panther, the American crocodile, and the West Indian manatee, along with 350 species of birds, 300 species of fresh and saltwater fish, 40 species of mammals, and 50 species of reptiles. The majority of South Florida's fresh water, which is stored in the Biscayne Aquifer, is recharged in the park.

Monroe County is the southernmost county of the state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 82,874. Its county seat is Key West. Monroe County includes the islands of the Florida Keys and comprises the Key West-Key Largo Micropolitan Statistical Area. Over 99.9% of the county's population lives on the Florida Keys. The mainland, which is part of the Everglades, comprises 87% of the county's land area and is virtually uninhabited with only 17 people recorded in the 2020 census.