Fort Lauderdale

The Tequesta lived along this coast for at least 2,000 years before Spanish contact brought disease and decline; by the time Spain gave Florida to Britain in 1763, surviving Native groups were reported to have left for Cuba. In the 1830s about 70 settlers lived along the New River. In January 1836, during the Second Seminole War, a Seminole raid killed the family of the farmer and wrecker William Cooley. The army built the first stockade named Fort Lauderdale in 1838, after Major William Lauderdale, and two more forts followed; all were abandoned when the war ended in 1842.

Settlement returned in the 1890s. Frank Stranahan began running a ferry across the New River in 1893 and opened a trading post, and the Florida East Coast Railway arrived soon after. The city was incorporated in 1911 and became the seat of the new Broward County in 1915. The land boom of the 1920s ended with the hurricane of 1926 and the Depression. In 1935 a white mob lynched Rubin Stacy, a Black man accused of robbery. In the Second World War a naval air station trained pilots on the site of today's airport.

After the war the population soared, reaching about 140,000 by 1970. Fort Lauderdale's beaches were reserved for white people until 1961, when Black residents began wade-in protests. The 1960 film Where the Boys Are made the city famous for spring break, which drew an estimated 350,000 students in 1985 before strict new rules cut numbers to about 20,000 by 1989. Since then the city has courted wealthier visitors, and downtown has filled with towers since 2002.

Water defines Fort Lauderdale. The city's 165 miles of canals and rivers have earned it the name "Venice of America", and with tens of thousands of registered yachts and about 100 marinas it also calls itself the "yachting capital of the world". The Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show each October, the largest in-water boat show in the world, brings over 125,000 people to the city, and in December a parade of illuminated boats sails the Intracoastal Waterway.

The spring-break past survives in memory and in the Elbo Room at Las Olas and A1A, but the beach scene today is calmer. The Riverwalk Arts and Entertainment District along the New River gathers the Broward Center, the art museum and the science museum, and the city's restaurants and nightclubs cluster along Las Olas and the beach.

Fort Lauderdale is one of the country's best-known destinations for LGBTQ travellers, centred on neighbouring Wilton Manors and its pride celebrations. Like much of Florida, the city changes with the seasons, as "snowbirds" from the northern United States, Canada and Europe arrive for the winter and spring.

About 183,000 people lived in the city at the 2020 census, making it the largest city in Broward County and the third largest in the Miami metropolitan area, which has more than six million people. Growth since 1970 has mostly happened in the suburbs to the west, and the city has gained residents in recent decades partly by annexing neighbourhoods.

The economy rests on tourism, cruises and boats. Port Everglades handled close to 4.8 million cruise passengers in fiscal year 2025 and is also Florida's deepest port and a major fuel terminal, while the boating industry, including yacht building and repair, accounts for over 109,000 jobs in the county. Finance, insurance, real estate and aviation add to the mix, and the convention centre near the beach draws business visitors.

Life is lived around the water: boats tied up behind waterfront houses and walks on the beach promenade. The rhythm follows the seasons, with crowded winters and quieter, stormier summers. Flooding is a growing worry in a low-lying city of canals; the storm of April 2023, when nearly 26 inches of rain fell in a single day, caused historic flooding.

Seafood leads in a city on the ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway. Waterfront restaurants serve grilled fish and shrimp and Florida stone crab claws, a regional delicacy. Some restaurants on the Intracoastal have boat slips, so diners can arrive by water.

South Florida's Cuban cooking is easy to find: Cuban sandwiches pressed in Cuban bread, strong sweet coffee and pastries filled with guava. Key lime pie, the state pie, ends many meals. Las Olas Boulevard is the main dining street, with pavement tables and restaurants of many cuisines, and the beach strip and Lauderdale-by-the-Sea add casual seafood spots near the sand.

The area also has a long tiki tradition. The Mai-Kai in neighbouring Oakland Park, opened in 1956 and reopened in 2024 after a renovation, is one of the few grand Polynesian-themed restaurants of its era still in operation, serving rum drinks made to the original recipes of Don the Beachcomber. Closer to the sand, the Elbo Room at Las Olas and A1A, open since 1938, remains the best-known beach bar, a survivor of the spring-break years.