Florida

Florida hangs off the southeast corner of the country as a long, low peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic, with a panhandle reaching west along the Gulf coast. Nearly surrounded by water and rarely rising far above it, the state is the flattest in the nation — its high point, Britton Hill, is just 345 feet (105 m). What it lacks in elevation it makes up in coastline: more than 1,300 miles of it, more than any state but Alaska, fringed with barrier islands, beaches, and reefs.

The land is built on porous limestone, riddled with springs, sinkholes, and underground aquifers, and capped in the south by the Everglades — a vast, slow-moving river of grass found nowhere else on Earth. The subtropical climate turns truly tropical at the southern tip and the Florida Keys, the only frost-free region in the continental United States. That same warmth and low elevation place Florida squarely in hurricane country and on the front line of rising seas.

Florida's geography has made it one of the fastest-growing states in the country, now the third most populous with over 22 million residents. People cluster along both coasts and around inland Orlando, drawn by the climate, the beaches, and the absence of a state income tax. Tourism, agriculture in the warm interior, and a steady inflow of new residents drive a Sun Belt economy built on the peninsula's endless shoreline.