Portal:Florida/Selected article/17

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A portion of the Skyline of Downtown Miami, southern Florida

The Miami–Fort Lauderdale–Pompano Beach metropolitan area, also commonly referred to as South Florida, the South Florida Metroplitan Area, the Miami Metro Area, Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach or the Tri-County Area, encompasses a three-county area of the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The metropolitan area covers the counties of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. The three counties are the three most populous in Florida, respectively. The term "South Florida" is roughly synonymous with the Gold Coast.

Because the population of South Florida is largely confined to a strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Everglades, the Miami urbanized area (that is, the area of contiguous urban development) is about 110 miles (180 km) long (north to south), but never more than twenty miles (32 km) wide, and in some areas only five miles wide (east to west). South Florida is longer than any other urbanized area in the United States except for the New York metropolitan area. It was the eighth most densely populated urbanized areas in the United States in the 2000 census.