- 3/17/2025 7:28:49 PM
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Tampa, Florida
The American state of Florida's Gulf Coast is home to the city of Tampa. The east side of Old Tampa Bay and the north shore of Tampa Bay form the city's boundaries. The capital of Hillsborough County and the biggest city in the Tampa Bay region is Tampa. According to the 2020 census, Tampa has a population of 384,959, making it the 52nd most populous city in America and the third most populous city in Florida behind Miami and Jacksonville.
With the construction of Fort Brooke in the 19th century, Tampa served as a military hub. Also introduced to the city was the cigar business by Vincente Martinez Ybor, for whom Ybor City is named. After the Civil War, Tampa was formally reincorporated as a city in 1887. Today, the tourist, healthcare, financial, insurance, technology, construction, and maritime sectors are what fuel Tampa's economy. The port on the bay, which generates over $15 billion in economic impact, is the biggest in the state.
The city is a part of the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida MSA, a four-county region with around 3.1 million inhabitants, making it the second-largest MSA in the state and the fourth-largest in the Southeastern United States, behind Washington, D.C., Miami, and Atlanta. The Tampa and Sarasota metro areas are typically included in the Greater Tampa Bay area, which is home to nearly 4 million people. Tampa's annual growth rate as of 2018 is 1.63%.
Etymology
The pioneer settlement near the US Army garrison of Fort Brooke was given the name "Tampa Town" when it was founded in 1849; in 1855, the name was reduced to "Tampa." The word "Tampa" first occurs as "Tanpa" in the memoirs of Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, who spent 17 years as a Calusa captive and journeyed across much of peninsular Florida. Tanpa, a significant Calusa town to the north of the Calusa dominion, presumably ruled by a different ruler, was reported by him. Tanpa is located at the mouth of Charlotte Harbor, according to archaeologist Jerald Milanich. Barrier islands cover the entrances to Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor, making it difficult for explorers, surveyors, and mapmakers from the 16th through the 18th centuries to understand their locations and the names given to them.
At one point or another, the contemporary Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor were referred to as Baha Tampa and Baha de Espritu Santo, respectively. Early Spanish maps of Florida referred to Tampa Bay as the Bay of the Holy Spirit (Bahia de Espritu Santo), but as early as 1576, it was referred to as B. Tampa (Baha Tampa or Tampa Bay). In Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas' Description del Destricto del Audiencia de la Espanola, from his book Descripcion de las Indias Ocidentales, printed in Madrid in 1601, "B. Tampa," which corresponds to Tampa Bay, appears for the first time on a printed map.
B. Tampa is also depicted on a British map from 1705, while "Carlos Bay" is shown for Charlotte Harbor to the south and "B. del Spirito Santo" is shown for Tampa Bay on a British map from 1748. Tampa Bay was given the new name "San Fernando" on a 1757 Spanish map. Bernard Romans referred to Tampa Bay as the "Bay of Espiritu Santo" as late as 1774, with "Tampa Bay" only referring to the northwest arm (what is now Old Tampa Bay), and the northeast branch being referred to as "Hillsborough Bay." The Timucua or Calusa languages may have been the source of the name. Some academics have compared "Tampa" to "itimpi," which in the Creek language means "nearby" or "close to," but whose meaning is unknown.
Tampa natives are commonly referred to as "Tampans," "Tampanians," or "Tampeos." Local experts contacted by Michael Kruse of the Tampa Bay Times indicate that "Tampan" was traditionally more frequent, whereas "Tampanian" became well-known when the former name started to be perceived as a possible insult. In order to build and work in the brand-new towns of Ybor City and West Tampa, a mixture of Cuban, Italian, and Spanish immigrants started coming in the late 1800s. By around 1900, these newcomers were referred to as "Tampeos" (or "Tampeas" for females), a term that is still occasionally used to describe their descendants who currently remain in the area, and maybe to all Tampa inhabitants regardless of their ethnicity.
Geography
Topography
The city has a total area of 175.3 sq mi (453.9 km2), of which 61.8 sq mi (160.1 km2) (35.3%) is water and 113.4 sq mi (293.7 km2) is land, according to the United States Census Bureau. The city's highest point is only 48 feet (15 meters) above sea level. Old Tampa Bay and Hillsborough Bay, which border the city of Tampa, combine to form Tampa Bay, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Tampa's principal source of fresh water, the Hillsborough River, pours into Hillsborough Bay just in front of Downtown Tampa. A smaller river, the Palm River, flows into McKay Bay, a smaller inlet, which is located at the northeastern extremity of Hillsborough Bay, just east of the city. The Interbay Peninsula, which separates Hillsborough Bay (the eastern) from Old Tampa Bay, serves as a geographic landmark for Tampa (the western).
Climate
The typical climate of Tampa includes dry and moderate winters and hot, humid summers with frequent thunderstorms. Year-round high temperatures ranging from 71 to 91 °F (22 to 33 °C) and low temperatures from 53 to 77 °F (12 to 25 °C). Tampa is divided into two different USDA climatic zones. Tampa is classified as being in USDA zones 9b north of Kennedy Boulevard away from the bay and 10a close to the shorelines and on the interbay peninsula south of Kennedy Boulevard, according to the 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Royal palms and coconut palms can only be grown to a point north of Zone 10a, while some varieties can be found in northern Tampa. A plant disease known as Texas phoenix palm decline has recently been seriously affecting specific palm tree species in the area and the rest of the state. This disease has damaged many local palms tree landscapes and poses a threat to the native palm tree species in the area.
Tropical Storms
Tampa rarely experiences serious consequences from tropical storms or hurricanes, although being threatened by them nearly every year during hurricane season (which lasts from June 1 to November 30). Since the category 4 hurricane in the immediate Tampa Bay area, none have made landfall there. Near Tarpon Springs, the 1921 Tampa Bay storm made landfall and left behind significant damage throughout the entire region.
Hurricane Donna (1960), Hurricane Charley (2004), Hurricane Irma (2017), and Hurricane Ian were all predicted to make landfall in the Tampa Bay region from the south-southwest, which is the worst-case track that would cause the highest storm surge event (2022). All of these storms, however, diverged away from Tampa Bay and made landfall farther down the coast, causing significant devastation in southwest Florida. Tampa was most impacted by Irma. On September 10, 2017, it made landfall close to Marco Island and continued directly north, passing through eastern Hillsborough County as a Category 1 hurricane and caused significant problems for the region, especially the electrical grid for several days.
The Tampa Bay Area is regarded as one of the most exposed areas in the world to a direct strike from a major storm due to rapid population growth and coastal development in the century since the last hurricane made landfall and increasing sea levels as a result of climate change.
Economy
The local economy is heavily dependent on the sectors of finance, retail, healthcare, insurance, air and sea shipping, national defense, professional sports, tourism, and real estate. Hillsborough University alone is anticipated to employ 740,000 people, and by 2015, that number is expected to rise to 922,000.
Consumer high-market demand has increased noticeably in Tampa from the year 2000, indicating greater wealth concentration in the region. In order to address a skilled labor shortage in manufacturing in the area caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the US Department of Labor awarded a two-year grant of nearly US$3 million to a program called "Connecting Talent to Careers," which is run by the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute and Tooling U-SME.
Sports
The National Football League, National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball all have teams that are currently affiliated with Tampa. Tampa is the home of the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning and the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, while St. Petersburg is the home of the MLB's Tampa Bay Rays. These clubs, along with a few others, represent the whole Tampa metropolitan area, as indicated by their names. The current professional teams in Tampa Bay have taken home a total of eight league championships.
Minor league baseball teams and facilities for Major League Baseball's spring training have long been located in the Tampa Bay area. The Low-A club Tampa Tarpons play there throughout the summer, and the New York Yankees hold their spring training there.
The University of South Florida Bulls play in 17 NCAA Division I sport, while the University of Tampa Spartans compete in 20 NCAA Division II sports.
All three of Tampa Bay's major teams as well as the Tampa Bay Rowdies qualified for their respective sport's championship series between September 2020 and July 2021. The Rays lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2020 World Series, the Rowdies and Phoenix Rising FC were named co-league champions after the USL Championship game was postponed due to COVID-19, the Buccaneers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl, the Lightning defeated the Montreal Canadiens in the 2021 Stanley Cup Finals, and the Lightning defeated the Dallas Stars in the 2020 Stanley Cup Finals. The name "Champa Bay" was given to the region by this dynasty.
Population
Florida's Hillsborough County is home to the city of Tampa. It serves as Hillsborough County's County seat as well. It is the third-largest city in Florida and the 51st-largest city in the United States with a 2023 population of 399,734. Tampa's population has grown by 0.97% from the most recent census, which showed a population of 395,912 in 2020, and is now rising at a pace of 1.25% yearly. Tampa, which spans more than 176 miles, has 3,506 persons per square mile.
The poverty rate of Tampa is 20.75%, with an average household income of $87,818. The median monthly cost of rent in recent years has been, and the median value of a home is. Tampa's population is 35.9 years old on average, with 35.3 years for men and 36.3 years for women.
Tampa is situated on Tampa Bay on Florida's west coast, close to the Gulf of Mexico. There are currently 350,000 people living in Tampa, up from 346,000 in 2011. Tampa is a component of the Tampa Bay Region, a sizable metropolis with a population of 2.8 million, as well as the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater Metropolitan statistical area. After Miami, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, this is the fourth-largest metro region in the Southeastern United States. More over 4.3 million people live in the Greater Tampa Bay area, and by 2017 that number is expected to rise to 4.56 million.
Top 2 News Websites
ABC Action News
On WFTS-TV and ABCActionNews.com, ABC Action News offers you breaking and developing news, weather, traffic, and sports coverage from the Tampa Bay metro area and around Florida.
Tampa Bay Reporter
The longtime newspaper journalists who founded Tampa Bay Reporter think that local politics and news are what's important. In order to better your life, we want to give you as much local news as we can.
Current City Mayor
Jane Castor
The City of Tampa's 59th mayor is Jane Castor. Jane, who was born and raised in Tampa, has dedicated her life to serving the city, first as a police officer, then as the city's first female police chief, and eventually as its 59th mayor. After completing her high school education at Chamberlain, she received an athletic scholarship at the University of Tampa.
In her 31 years with the Tampa Police Department, Jane worked in almost every position and in almost all of the city's neighborhoods. Castor served as Tampa's first female chief of police for six years beginning in October 2009. As a senior employee, Castor aimed to cut significant crimes by 70% all around the city. Department of Homeland Security's Tampa Bay Urban Area Security Initiative and oversaw the multi-jurisdictional Super Bowl XLIII security strategy.
Castor played a key role in the creation of the strategy that reorganized the police force, which now has 1,300 officers and staff and a $145 million annual budget, into three more manageable districts. Decentralization offered officers the chance to become fully immersed in the community while ensuring commanders had the resources, they needed to do their tasks.
She made community service a priority in her work. When Jane was a beat cop working night hours, she was familiar with the residents, business owners, and civic leaders in her area. As chief, she required every officer to have a same level of familiarity. The "golden rule" that prevailed during her tenure was that "everyone was treated with dignity and respect." She also added the point that for the police department to be effective, it needed to be a partner in the community.
To do this, Jane created and executed an improved Citizen Academy to provide the public a behind-the-scenes peek at the police force and promote productive working relationships. She also established the Young Citizens Academy to provide young people a chance to learn about law enforcement and receive guidance from cops. The police department also collaborated with the Florida Holocaust Museum and the Anti-Defamation League to provide tours of the museum and conversations about the significance of each officer's contribution to the community. Jane, who is dedicated to helping young people, gathered money to construct a $4 million gym and recreation facility for kids in need. For more than 500 impoverished kids, the Police Athletic League now provides after-school and summer programming. The police department also constructed a second RICH House in the city under Jane's direction. They offer a safe refuge for kids in low-income areas and have helped hundreds of needy kids after school with advice and support. Jane established RISE Tampa, a charity that supports youth initiatives in our community while also supplying law enforcement with training and tools that aren't covered by budgets.
Jane continues to be actively involved in the community, serving on the boards of directors for Gracepoint Mental Health and Wellness, Starting Right, Now, RISE Tampa Police Foundation, Bike Walk Tampa Bay, The Athena Society, and the GTE Financial Supervisory Committee, among others. She is a Fellow of the Police Foundation and a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
Jane Castor is pleased to call Seminole Heights home. She shares a home there with her longtime companion Ana Cruz, herself a native of Tampa, and the two of them enjoy spending time with their two sons, Sergei and Seely, as well as fishing and Lightning hockey games.
