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St. Augustine
The oldest continuously occupied European city in the U.S.
St. Augustine, on Florida's Atlantic coast, is the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the present-day United States, founded by the Spanish in 1565 - decades before Jamestown or Plymouth. Its narrow old streets, coquina-stone fort, and Spanish colonial architecture preserve a chapter of American history older than the English colonies.
The city sits on a sheltered tidal lagoon behind a barrier island, guarded by the Castillo de San Marcos, a 17th-century fortress built of coquina - a soft local shell-rock that absorbed cannon fire rather than shattering. For two centuries St. Augustine was the capital of Spanish Florida and a flashpoint between the Spanish, British, and the young United States.