Florida's Largest City — the St. Johns River, Atlantic beaches, and an underrated craft food scene
Jacksonville is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States, a sprawling Florida metropolis where the St. Johns River flows through downtown toward the Atlantic, and where long-overlooked neighborhoods have developed a serious craft beer and food culture. The Beaches district along Neptune, Atlantic, and Jacksonville Beach is more locals-first than Miami's tourist zones. Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens overlooks the river; the Jacksonville Landing riverfront district frames a genuinely walkable downtown.
The site of modern Jacksonville was the location of Fort Caroline, a French Huguenot colony established in 1564 — one of the earliest European settlements in North America — before being massacred by the Spanish the following year. Named for Andrew Jackson (who served as territorial governor) when it was platted in 1822, the city became Florida's main commercial center. The Great Fire of 1901, one of the worst urban fires in US history, destroyed most of downtown and led to the uniform early-20th-century streetscape that defines the historic core today.