I.

Introduction

Tampa, city on the west coast of Florida, seat of Hillsborough County. It is the central city of the Tampa-Saint Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan area focused around Tampa Bay. Tampa is a major industrial center and seaport, and since 1980 the city and its surrounding metropolitan region have become one of Florida’s most important hubs of commerce and finance.

Tampa lies at the mouth of the Hillsborough River at the head of Tampa Bay, the largest inlet of the Gulf of Mexico on the Florida Peninsula. Tampa is often associated with Saint Petersburg, which lies across the bay to the southwest. However, Tampa’s focus on industry and business distinguishes it from its sister city, a leading tourist destination.

Tampa’s climate is humid subtropical. Its weather, moderated by the Gulf of Mexico, is characterized by generally pleasant temperatures, although winter freezes occasionally occur. Average high temperature in January is 21°C (70°F) and the average low is 10°C (50°F); the average high in July is 32°C (90°F) and the average low is 24°C (75°F). Tampa annually receives 1,140 mm (45 in) of precipitation; most rain falls from June through September in late afternoon thunderstorms. In fact, the Tampa Bay area experiences more days of thunderstorms each year than any other location in the United States. The frequent thunderstorms gave the city its name: Tampa is derived from a Calusa Native American word meaning “lightning.”

II.

People

The population of the city of Tampa has grown in recent years, increasing from 280,015 in 1990 to 303,447 in 2000. In 2006, it was estimated at 332,888.

However, the four-county metropolitan area centered on the city grew more rapidly, increasing from 2,067,959 in 1990 to 2,697,731 in 2006.

According to the 2000 census, whites made up 64.2 percent of the city of Tampa’s population; blacks 26.1 percent; Asians 2.2 percent; Native Americans 0.4 percent; and Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders 0.1 percent. People of mixed heritage or not reporting race comprised 7.1 percent of the population. Hispanics, who may be of any race, made up 19.3 percent of Tampa’s population.

III.

City Landscape

Tampa is at the heart of the expanding Tampa-Saint Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan area that rings Tampa Bay and spreads northward along the Gulf of Mexico. Although the city of Tampa is relatively modest in land area at 290 sq km (112 sq mi), the metropolitan region encompasses Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, and Hernando counties and has a land area of 6,616 sq km (2,555 sq mi). In addition to Tampa, Saint Petersburg, and Clearwater, other prominent municipalities contained in the metropolitan region include Brandon, Brooksville, Dunedin, and Largo.

The city of Tampa itself is elongated in a north-south direction, with the downtown central business district in the middle and the southern segment of the city occupying a peninsula that juts into Tampa Bay. The peninsula divides Tampa Bay into two arms: Old Tampa Bay to the west and Hillsborough Bay to the east. Long-established city neighborhoods include Hyde Park, the city’s original residential section; Davis Islands, a commercial and residential district created on islands in the bay; and Ybor City, still home to Tampa’s once-booming cigar industry and now a national historic landmark district.

IV.

Educational and Cultural Institutions

Tampa’s leading universities are the University of South Florida, located just to the north of the city; The University of Tampa, just west of downtown; and Florida Metropolitan University—Tampa College. The city also has a large community college.

Tampa is the cultural center of its region. Among Tampa’s museums are the Tampa Museum of Art, with collections of Greek and Roman antiquities; the Ybor City State Museum, which focuses on the city’s historic cigar industry, concentrated in the colorful community of Ybor City on the northeast edge of downtown; the Museum of Science and Industry; and a children’s museum. A noted landmark is the former Tampa Bay Hotel, a Moorish-style building that now houses the administration of The University of Tampa. The Henry B. Plant Museum in the south wing of the building re-creates the opulence of the original hotel. The glass-domed Florida Aquarium explains the aquatic habitats of the state. The Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center is home to a symphony orchestra as well as opera and ballet companies.

The leading tourist attraction in Tampa is Busch Gardens, a wildlife-based theme park. This facility located in the north end of the city provides rides, live entertainment, and animal exhibits. Popular annual events are the Florida State Fair, a showcase for agriculture and crafts, and the Gasparilla Festival, Tampa’s version of Mardi Gras; both are in February.

V.

Economy

During the 1980s metropolitan Tampa became the foremost banking, commercial, and services center in the western part of the Florida Peninsula, and the city is home to many high-technology companies. Located at the tip of the peninsula jutting into Tampa Bay is MacDill Air Force Base, home to the United States Central Command, which is responsible for directing U.S. military operations from northeastern Africa to central Asia.

Tampa developed as the economic hub of a large area of west central Florida, producing phosphates, citrus fruits, vegetables, and livestock. Tourism is important to the Tampa metropolitan region. Visitors are drawn to beach resorts along the nearby Gulf Coast, and each year millions visit Busch Gardens in northern Tampa.

The Port of Tampa is among the nation’s busiest deepwater ports. The port also is home to a shrimp fleet and is a port of departure for cruise ships.

A number of highways and expressways link Tampa to the rest of the metropolitan region and the state. Interstate 4 leads inland toward Orlando and forms the axis of the eastern suburbs. Interstate 275 connects Tampa to Saint Petersburg via one of three bridges across the arm of Tampa Bay lying to the west of the city; it also links downtown Tampa to the northern suburbs and Interstate 75, the main freeway bisecting the Florida Peninsula to the north. Tampa International Airport is known for spaciousness and efficiency, and the city is the terminus of an Amtrak passenger rail line.

VI.

Government

Tampa’s municipal government consists of a mayor and city council. The mayor and the seven nonpartisan city council members are elected to four-year terms.

VII.

History

The Calusa people had a settlement on Tampa Bay when the first Europeans arrived in the 1520s. Expeditions led by the Spanish soldier Pánfilo de Narváez in 1528 and the explorer Hernando de Soto in 1539 passed through the region on quests for gold. However, Europeans did not settle the site of present-day Tampa until 1823 when a plantation was established. Fort Brooke was built the following year to protect the new settlement and encouraged its growth. Tampa incorporated as a city in 1855. Confederate forces occupied Fort Brooke at the start of the American Civil War but surrendered it to Union troops in May 1864.

The Tampa area grew when phosphates, chemical compounds used to make fertilizer, were discovered in 1883 about 50 km (about 30 mi) inland around Lakeland. In 1884 a railroad reached the city, financed by Georgia industrialist Henry B. Plant, who also inaugurated tourism in the area with construction of the Tampa Bay Hotel.

Vicente Ybor founded the cigar-making industry in 1886 in a neighborhood northeast of central Tampa; that community soon was renamed Ybor City and became the nation’s leading center of cigar manufacturing as thousands labored to roll cigars from Cuban tobaccos. While the district still manufactures some cigars, today it is better known as a lively historic and entertainment district.

Tampa was an army training camp during the Spanish-American War in 1898; Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders used the city as an embarkation point for Cuba, where they launched the celebrated charge at the Battle of San Juan Hill. Thousands were drawn to the Tampa region by intense real estate promotions in the 1920s (see Florida: The Real Estate Boom). The city’s shipbuilding industry prospered as the nation equipped to fight world wars in the first half of the 20th century.

In 1953 Tampa annexed a number of inner suburbs, gaining sizable new area and population. Subsequently, the Tampa metropolitan area mushroomed, especially after 1970, but the city itself now occupies only slightly more than 4 percent of the metropolitan region’s land area.

In the 1980s Tampa undertook some major projects to try to revitalize the city. One successful project turned Ybor City into a thriving tourist center. However, similar efforts in the city center were far less successful. Among these were an outdoor mall, a riverside park, and a monorail to connect downtown Tampa to the nearby high-end residential developments on Harbor Island. By 2000 the mall had become lifeless, the riverside park all but abandoned, and the monorail had been torn down. Despite Tampa’s efforts, much of the area’s economic growth bypassed its city center, focusing instead on the outer ring of the metropolitan region.