Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida, the most populous city proper in the let pass and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the chair of Duval County, with which the city presidency consolidated in 1968. Consolidation gave Jacksonville its great size and placed most of its metropolitan population within the city limits. As of 2020, Jacksonville’s population is 949,611, making it the 12th most populous city in the U.S., the most populous city in the Southeast, and the most populous city in the South outdoor of the state of Texas. With a population of 1,733,937, the Jacksonville metropolitan area ranks as Florida’s fourth-largest metropolitan region.

Jacksonville straddles the St. Johns River in the First Coast region of northeastern Florida, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) south of the Georgia give leave to enter line (25 mi or 40 km to the urban core/downtown) and 350 miles (560 km) north of Miami. The Jacksonville Beaches communities are along the next Atlantic coast. The Place was originally inhabited by the Timucua people, and in 1564 was the site of the French colony of Fort Caroline, one of the obsolete European settlements in what is now the continental United States. Under British rule, a harmony grew at the narrow narrowing in the river where cattle crossed, known as Wacca Pilatka to the Seminole and the Cow Ford to the British. A platted town was expected there in 1822, a year after the United States gained Florida from Spain; it was named after Andrew Jackson, the first military governor of the Florida Territory and seventh President of the United States.

Harbor improvements since the late 19th century have made Jacksonville a major military and civilian deep-water port. Its riverine location facilitates Naval Station Mayport, Naval Air Station Jacksonville, the U.S. Marine Corps Blount Island Command, and the Port of Jacksonville, Florida’s third largest seaport. Jacksonville’s military bases and the handy Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay form the third largest military presence in the United States. Significant factors in the local economy augment services such as banking, insurance, healthcare and logistics. As in the declare of much of Florida, tourism is important to the Jacksonville area, particularly tourism joined to golf. People from Jacksonville are sometimes called “Jacksonvillians” or “Jaxsons” (also spelled “Jaxons”).

The Place of the liberal city of Jacksonville has been inhabited for thousands of years. On Black Hammock Island in the national Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, a University of North Florida team discovered some of the oldest remnants of pottery in the United States, dating to 2500 BCE.