Florida panhandle
The Florida panhandle (also known as West Florida and Northwest Florida) is the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Florida. It is a salient roughly 200 miles (320 km) long, bordered by Alabama on the north and the west, Georgia on the north, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Its eastern boundary is arbitrarily defined. It is defined by its southern culture and rural geography relative to the rest of Florida, as well as closer cultural links to French-influenced Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Its major communities include Pensacola, Navarre, Destin, Panama City Beach, and Tallahassee.
For a list of other political entities with similar geographic extensions, see Salient (geography). For the British colony (1763–1783) and later the Spanish colony (1783–1821) that included modern-day Florida west of the Apalachicola River as well as portions of what are now Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, see West Florida.
As is the case with the other eight U.S. states that have panhandles, the geographic meaning of the term is inexact and elastic. References to the Florida panhandle always include the ten counties west of the Apalachicola River, a natural geographic boundary, which was the historic dividing line between the British colonies of West Florida and East Florida. These western counties also lie in the Central Time Zone (with the exception of Gulf County, which is divided between the Eastern and Central Time zones), while the rest of the state is in the Eastern Time Zone. References to the panhandle may also include some or all of eleven counties immediately east of the Apalachicola known as the Big Bend region, along the curve of Apalachee Bay.
Like the rest of North Florida,[1] including North Central Florida, the panhandle is more similar in culture and climate to the Deep South than the rest of the state, particularly than Central Florida and South Florida in the lower peninsula. The Florida panhandle is known for its conservative politics, religious adherence, and "piney woods".[2]
The largest city in the panhandle is Tallahassee, the state capital, population 196,169 (2020). However, the largest city west of the Appalachicola river is Pensacola, which has a population of 54,312 (2020) and also has the largest Metropolitan area in the entire panhandle with a population of 511,502 (2020). This metro area includes the second- and third-largest communities in the region, Pensacola and Navarre. The total population of the panhandle, as of the 2010 Census, was 1,407,925, just under 7.5% of Florida's total population as recorded in the same census. At roughly 70 persons per square mile, its population density is less than one-fifth of Florida's as a whole.[3]
Physical features[edit]
The Apalachicola River is the largest river of the panhandle. It is formed by the junction of several rivers, including the Chattahoochee and the Flint, where the boundaries of Alabama, Georgia, and Florida meet. From there, it flows southward to the town of Apalachicola.
Major estuaries include, from west to east: Perdido Bay, fed by the Perdido River, which forms the western boundary of Florida; Escambia Bay and East Bay, fed by the Escambia River and Blackwater River, respectively; Choctawhatchee Bay, fed by the Choctawhatchee River; and St. Andrews Bay, fed by Econfina Creek. Pensacola Bay, a deepwater port, is formed by the joining of Escambia and East bays. The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, completed in 1949, traverses the lower panhandle by means of bays, lagoons, sounds, and human-made canals. The barrier islands of Perdido Key and Santa Rosa Island extend from the Pandhandle's western extremity through Fort Walton Beach to Destin.
Britton Hill is the highest natural point in the state
at 345 feet (105 meters) above mean sea level.
Economy[edit]
Historically, the economy of the panhandle depended mainly on farming, forestry and lumbering, paper mills, import/export shipping at Pensacola and to a lesser extent at Panama City, shipbuilding, and commercial fishing. After World War II, the economy was boosted by the numerous military bases established in the region, as well as the growth of tourism and the hospitality industry.
In addition to military bases, state and local governments, hospitals, schools, and colleges, major private employers in the second half of the twentieth century included Monsanto and Westinghouse plants at Pensacola, the St. Joe Paper Company in Port St. Joe, and Gulf Power, a major electric utility company.
Unlike central and southern Florida, the panhandle has never been a producer of citrus crops because the area is subject to regular frosts and freezes during winter, which destroy citrus fruits.
Transportation[edit]
Road[edit]
Interstate 10 is the only interstate highway in the panhandle, connecting the extreme west with North Florida and Jacksonville. Other older east–west routes include U.S. Highway 90 and U.S. Highway 98. Important north–south routes west of the Apalachicola River include U.S. Highway 29, U.S. Highway 331, and U.S. Highway 231, all linking to Alabama and Interstate 65. State Road 20 stretches from Niceville to Tallahassee.
Rail[edit]
Freight service is provided by the Class III Florida Gulf & Atlantic Railroad, which acquired most of the CSX main line from Pensacola to Jacksonville on June 1, 2019. (For the history of this line, see Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad.)
Passenger service ended with the creation of Amtrak in 1971, but was revived with the extension of the Sunset Limited to Orlando beginning in 1993; however, passenger service was discontinued after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005. Other regional short-line railroads serving the panhandle are the Alabama and Gulf Coast Railway (formerly BNSF Railway, ex-Frisco Railway), the Bay Line Railroad, and the AN Railway.
Air[edit]
Major airports include:
The following institutions of higher learning are located in the Florida panhandle.
State University System:
Florida College System:
Religiously affiliated:
Places marked with an asterisk (*) lie east of the Apalachicola River, and may not be considered part of the panhandle by some residents or writers.
Population of the major metropolitan areas in the panhandle:
The panhandle is renowned for the white sand beaches and blue-green waters of its barrier islands fronting the Gulf of Mexico. According to the National Park Service:[17]
The beach towns in the panhandle, many of which play host to college students during spring break, are sometimes derisively called the Redneck Riviera.[18] The term was used as the title of a song by country music artist Tom T. Hall on his 1996 album Songs from Sopchoppy. The album takes its name from a town in rural Wakulla County, near Tallahassee.
Tourists have been drawn to the panhandle since the building of the Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad in the 1880s. Pensacola Beach has been a major tourist attraction since the building of bridges between the mainland and Santa Rosa Island in 1931. After World War II, an increase in both tourism and population of the area led to a proliferation of motels, restaurants, bars, tourist attractions, and amusement parks along the coast, concentrated in Pensacola Beach, Fort Walton Beach, and Panama City Beach. Examples include the Gulfarium marine park and aquarium in Fort Walton Beach,[19] and the former Miracle Strip Amusement Park (1963–2004) in Panama City Beach.
In 1971, the federal government acquired many acres of the coastal islands in Escambia, Santa Rosa, and Okaloosa counties, preserving them from commercial development by establishing the Gulf Islands National Seashore, which also covers some islands off the Mississippi coast. Other beach areas protected by the state of Florida include
Both state and federal parks offer facilities for camping, picnicking, and other recreational pursuits. In addition, some parts of the coastline are federal property belonging to Pensacola Naval Air Station, Eglin Air Force Base, and Tyndall Air Force Base, and so are likewise protected from commercial development.
In addition, seven state aquatic preserves, covering thousands of acres of submerged lands in coastal areas, are located in the panhandle.[20] A number of other state parks, preserves, and forests are located inland.
The 1970s also saw the beginnings of a number of upscale beach resorts, condominium towers, vacation homes, and planned communities, such as Seaside and Sandestin, so that most of the privately owned areas of the coastline are now heavily developed.
Military bases[edit]
Major military bases include the Pensacola Naval Air Station (the home of Naval Aviation in the United States), Eglin Air Force Base and Hurlburt Field near Ft. Walton Beach, Naval Support Activity Panama City in Panama City Beach, and Tyndall Air Force Base near Panama City. Smaller military bases in the Florida panhandle include the Center for Information Warfare Training in Pensacola, Naval Air Station Whiting Field near Milton and Duke Field near Crestview.
The 1983-84 television show Emerald Point N.A.S. was set in a naval air station somewhere in the American South, similar to Pensacola NAS. The 1997-2000 action/adventure series Pensacola: Wings of Gold was explicitly set there.