Longboat Key is a town in Manatee and Sarasota counties along the central west coast of the U.S. state of Florida, located on and coterminous in imitation of the barrier island of the similar name. Longboat Key is south of Anna Maria Island, between Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. It is approximately equally on bad terms between Manatee and Sarasota counties. The town of Longboat Key was incorporated in 1955 and is allocation of the Bradenton-Sarasota-Venice, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town’s population was 6,888 at the 2010 census, down from 7,603 at the 2000 census. It was back up to 7,505 in the 2020 census.

Longboat Key was originally inhabited by Native Americans. The Place of what is now Longboat Key was scouted by Juan de Añasco who was the first known European to probe the key and Hernando De Soto’s scout. He spent just about two months attempting to locate a landing site, and he was also maybe the first European man to look and study Sarasota Bay, Boca Ceiga Bay and the Manatee River. According to local legend, he believed the Indians were hostile. When the party reached land on the island, the Indians fled leaving their Longboat in a bayou. Pirate Jean Lafitte was said to have been shipwrecked near or upon Longboat Key.

Prior to 1842, Cuban and Spanish fishermen along gone some squatters would reside upon the island. A fishing camp and a trading proclaim for Native Americans would exist in the northern share of the key located in what is presently the Longboat Village. At the time, the area was referred to on maps as “Saraxola” and “Zarazote”.

There is Tiny known more or less the island after 1848 and until the 1880s, because a hurricane hit the area and destroyed most of Longboat Key. The only situation that is known is that Charles Abbe had a plantation at an unmemorable location on the island where citrus and pineapples were grown.