Sarasota is a city in Sarasota County on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The area is well-known for its cultural and environmental amenities, beaches, resorts, and the Sarasota School of Architecture. The city is located in the southern grow less of the Greater Tampa Bay Area and north of Fort Myers and Punta Gorda. Its ascribed limits tote up Sarasota Bay and several barrier islands amongst the bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Sarasota is a principal city of the Sarasota metropolitan area, and is the seat of Sarasota County. According to the 2020 U.S. census, Sarasota had a population of 54,842.

The Sarasota city limits contain several keys, including Lido Key, St. Armands Key, Otter Key, Casey Key, Coon Key, Bird Key, and portions of Siesta Key. Longboat Key is the largest key separating the recess from the gulf, but it was evenly separated by the supplementary county stock of 1921. The allowance of the key that parallels the Sarasota city boundary that extends to that other county parentage along the bayfront of the mainland was removed from the city boundaries at the request of John Ringling in the mid-1920s, who sought to avoid city taxation of his planned developments at the southern tip of the key. Although they never were completed in the quickly faltering economy, those expansion concessions settled by the city never were reversed and the county has retained regulation of those lands.

The city limits expanded significantly like the real estate hurry of the before twentieth century, reaching more or less 70 square miles (180 km). The wild speculation boom began to smash in 1926 and the city limits began to contract, shrinking to less than a quarter of that area.

The Place known today as Sarasota appeared upon a sheepskin Spanish map from 1763 in the same way as the word Zarazote over present-day Sarasota and Bradenton. The origin’s of the read out is disputed, with some claiming that it is based upon conquistador Hernando de Soto’s daughter Sara, and others claiming that it comes from “sara-de-cota,” meaning “an Place of land easily observed” in the language of the Calusa original tribe. Around 1883 to 1885, The Florida Mortgage And Investment Company Of Edinburgh bought 60,000 acres for development in what is now the City of Sarasota. Many Scottish people began to reach in Sarasota in December 1885. The municipal dealing out of Sarasota was acknowledged when it was incorporated as a town in 1902. John Gillespie was the first Mayor. When reincorporated behind a city form of government, A. B. Edwards became the first mayor of the city.