Tampa, Florida in the context of "Fort Brooke"

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⭐ Core Definition: Tampa, Florida

Tampa (/ˈtæmpə/ TAM-pə) is a major city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. Tampa's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. It is the third-most populous city in Florida, thirteenth-most populous in the Southeast, and 49th-most populous city in the country, with a population of 403,364 at the 2020 census. The Tampa Bay metropolitan area, at over 3.42 million residents, is the second-largest metropolitan area in Florida and 17th-largest in the United States. The Greater Tampa Bay area has over 4 million residents and generally includes the Tampa and Sarasota metro areas.

Tampa was founded as a military center in the 19th century, with the establishment of Fort Brooke. The cigar industry was brought to Tampa by Vincente Martinez Ybor, after whom Ybor City is named. Tampa was reincorporated as a city in 1887 following the Civil War. Tampa's economy is driven by tourism, health care, finance, insurance, technology, construction, and the maritime industry. The bay's port is the largest in the state, responsible for over $15 billion in economic impact.

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👉 Tampa, Florida in the context of Fort Brooke

Fort Brooke was a historical military post established at the mouth of the Hillsborough River in present-day Tampa, Florida, in 1824. Its original purpose was to serve as a check on and trading post for the native Seminoles, who had been confined to an interior reservation by the Treaty of Moultrie Creek (1823), and it served as a military headquarters and port during the Second Seminole War (1835–1842). The village of Tampa developed just north of the fort during this period, and the area was the site of a minor raid and skirmish during the American Civil War. The obsolete outpost was sparsely garrisoned after the war, and it was decommissioned in 1883, just before Tampa began a period of rapid growth, opening the land for development.

Fort Brooke was located on what is now the southern end of downtown Tampa along eastern bank of the river and the Garrison Channel. Most of the fort's structures were situated at the current site of the Tampa Convention Center, with the military reserve stretching from the current location of the Tampa Bay History Center to the southeast to Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park to the northwest, with many modern buildings and public spaces (including Benchmark International Arena and much of the Tampa Riverwalk now located in its former footprint. Several unmapped army and Seminole cemeteries along with many artifacts were discovered during various construction projects. The soldiers' remains were reinterred at the Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell, the native remains were transferred to the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the artifacts were given to the Tampa Bay History Center and other institutions for research and preservation.

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Tampa, Florida in the context of Puerto Rican Spanish

Puerto Rican Spanish is the variety of the Spanish language as characteristically spoken in Puerto Rico and by millions of people of Puerto Rican descent living in the United States and elsewhere. It belongs to the group of Caribbean Spanish variants and, as such, is largely derived from Canarian Spanish and Andalusian Spanish. Outside of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rican accent of Spanish is also commonly heard in the U.S. Virgin Islands and many U.S. mainland cities like Orlando, New York City, Philadelphia, Miami, Tampa, Boston, Cleveland, and Chicago, among others. However, not all stateside Puerto Ricans have knowledge of Spanish. Opposite to island-born Puerto Ricans who primarily speak Spanish, many stateside-born Puerto Ricans primarily speak English, although many stateside Puerto Ricans are fluent in Spanish and English, and often alternate between the two languages.

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Tampa, Florida in the context of Gulf Coast of the United States

The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South or the South Coast, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, and these are known as the Gulf States.

The economy of the Gulf Coast area is dominated by industries related to energy, petrochemicals, fishing, aerospace, agriculture, and tourism. The large cities of the region are (from west to east) Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Houston, Galveston, Beaumont, Lake Charles, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Gulfport, Biloxi, Mobile, Pensacola, Panama City, St. Petersburg, and Tampa. All are the centers or major cities of their respective metropolitan areas and many contain large ports.

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Tampa, Florida in the context of Tampa Bay area

The Tampa Bay area is a major metropolitan area surrounding Tampa Bay on the Gulf Coast of Florida in the United States. It includes the main cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater. It is the 17th-largest metropolitan area in the United States, with a population of 3,175,275 as of the 2020 U.S. census.

The exact boundaries of the metro area can differ in different contexts. Hillsborough County and Pinellas County (including the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, and various smaller communities) make up the most limited definition. This area includes most of the Tampa Bay bayfront, aside from the far southern portion which lies in Manatee County. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) defines the Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) as including Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties as well as Hernando and Pasco Counties to the north; and it is the 18th-most populous MSA in the country. The MSA was first defined in 1950 as the Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida Standard Metropolitan Area, and included Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. Pasco County was added to the MSA in 1973. In 1983, Hernando County was added to the MSA and Clearwater was added to the MSA name. The OMB has designated Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Largo, and Pinellas Park as the principal cities of the MSA. Unlike most large metropolitan areas, Tampa does not belong to any combined statistical area and is the largest MSA in the United States not to belong to one.

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Tampa, Florida in the context of Cape Coral, Florida

Cape Coral is a city in Lee County, Florida, United States, on the Gulf of Mexico. Founded in 1957, the city's population had grown to 194,016 as of the 2020 census, a 26% increase from 154,309 at the 2010 census, making it the ninth-most populous city in Florida. With an area of 120 square miles (310 km), Cape Coral is the largest city between Tampa and Miami in both population and area. It is the largest and principal city in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city has over 400 mi (640 km) of navigable waterways, more than any other city on earth.

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Tampa, Florida in the context of Interstate 75

Interstate 75 (I-75) is a major north–south Interstate Highway in the Great Lakes and Southeastern regions of the United States. As with most Interstates that end in 5, it is a major cross-country, north–south route at a length of 1,786.47 miles (2,875.04 km), traveling from State Road 826 (SR 826, Palmetto Expressway) and SR 924 (Gratigny Parkway) on the HialeahMiami Lakes border (a few miles northwest of Miami, Florida), to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, at the Canada–United States border. It is the second-longest north–south Interstate Highway (after I-95) and the seventh-longest Interstate Highway overall.

I-75 passes through six different states. The highway runs the length of the Florida peninsula from the Miami area and up the Gulf Coast through Tampa. Farther north in Georgia, I-75 continues on through Macon and Atlanta before running through Chattanooga and Knoxville and the Cumberland Mountains in Tennessee. I-75 crosses Kentucky, passing through Lexington before crossing the Ohio River into Cincinnati, Ohio. In Ohio, the highway runs up the western side through Dayton and Lima before crossing into Michigan north of Toledo. I-75 runs northeasterly along the Lake Erie shoreline and Detroit River into the city of Detroit before turning northwesterly to Flint and northward to the Mackinac Bridge where the freeway crosses the strait between Lakes Huron and Michigan. Farther north, I-75 approaches the Canadian border at Sault Ste. Marie, downriver from Lake Superior, 1,786.5 miles (2,875.1 km) from its origins near the subtropical Atlantic Ocean.

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Tampa, Florida in the context of List of tallest buildings in Florida

This list of tallest buildings in Florida ranks the tallest buildings (170 metres (560 ft) or higher) in the U.S. state of Florida by height. The tallest building in the state is the 85-story Panorama Tower, which rises 868 feet (265 m) in the City of Miami's Brickell neighborhood and was completed in 2017. As of 2025, the top 10 tallest buildings in Florida are all located in Miami.

Florida has 45 buildings that are 550 feet (170 m) or higher. The majority are located in the City of Miami, and over 94% are in the Greater Miami area while the rest are in the Tampa and Jacksonville areas. None of them are in the Orlando area. Of the 37 tallest buildings in Florida, 24 are in the City of Miami, 14 are in Sunny Isles Beach, 2 are in Miami Beach, 2 are in Tampa, and 1 is in Jacksonville. The Greater Miami area accounts for 34 of the 37 tallest buildings over 550 feet in Florida. Miami alone is ranked as the third largest skyline in the United States after New York City and Chicago, even without counting the extended skyline up the beach to Sunny Isles and Fort Lauderdale.

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Tampa, Florida in the context of Vicente Martinez Ybor

Vicente Martinez Ybor (7 September 1818 – 14 December 1896) was a Spanish entrepreneur who first became a noted industrialist and cigar manufacturer in Cuba, then Key West, and finally Tampa, Florida.

Martinez Ybor is best known for his founding of the immigrant-populated cigar manufacturing town of Ybor City just outside Tampa, Florida, in 1885. It was annexed by Tampa in 1887 and was a major factor in the community's rapid development from a small town into one of the largest cities in Florida and, for a time, the world's leader in cigar manufacturing. In addition to his Principe de Gales line of Cuban cigars, he founded many other businesses in Tampa including an insurance company, street paving, gas stations, a streetcar line, and Tampa's first brewery. For his workers, he built and sold hundreds of affordable homes, brought doctors to the area, and converted his original cigar factory into a social hall and theater for Tampa's first mutual aid society, El Centro Español de Tampa. His business interests were integral to the rapid expansion of the Port of Tampa and Tampa's overall economy.

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Tampa, Florida in the context of Ybor City

Ybor City (/ˈbɔːr/ EE-bor) is a historic neighborhood just northeast of downtown Tampa, Florida, United States. It was founded in the 1880s by Vicente Martinez Ybor and other cigar manufacturers and populated by thousands of immigrants, mainly from Cuba, Spain, and Italy. For the next 50 years, workers in Ybor City's cigar factories rolled hundreds of millions of cigars annually.

The neighborhood had features unusual among contemporary communities in the south, most notably its multiethnic and multiracial population and their many mutual aid societies. The cigar industry employed thousands of well-paid workers, helping Tampa grow from an economically depressed village to a bustling city in about 20 years and giving it the nickname "Cigar City".

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