What is the capital of Florida?

Tallahassee is the capital of Florida, located in the Florida Panhandle in the northwestern part of the state, about 200 miles east of Pensacola, 200 miles west of Jacksonville, and about 25 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico. Tallahassee has been the capital of Florida since 1824, when the territorial government chose it as a compromise location roughly midway between the rival commercial centers of Pensacola in the west and St. Augustine in the east, the two former Spanish colonial capitals.

Florida had been Spanish since 1565 (St. Augustine, the oldest continuously inhabited European-founded settlement in the continental United States), British from 1763 to 1783, Spanish again from 1783 to 1821, then a U.S. territory after the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 transferred Florida to the United States, then the 27th state on March 3, 1845. The city's name comes from a Muskogean (Apalachee or Creek) word meaning "old fields" or "old town." The Tallahassee region was an important Apalachee population center before Spanish colonization and the site of the Mission San Luis de Apalachee from 1633 to 1704.

Tallahassee was the only Confederate state capital east of the Mississippi never captured by Union forces during the Civil War, although Florida supplied food and salt to the Confederacy and was largely peripheral to the main fighting. The Florida State Capitol consists of the historic Capitol building completed in 1845 (with later additions and a 1902 cupola) and the modern 22-story New Capitol completed in 1977 standing directly behind it.

Tallahassee's population is about 200,000, with a metropolitan area of about 385,000 people. The state government employs the largest share of the workforce, but the city is also home to two major universities: Florida State University (founded 1851, about 45,000 students) and Florida A&M University (founded 1887, about 9,000 students, one of the largest historically Black universities in the country). Tallahassee Community College serves another 12,000 students. The local economy is dominated by government, education, and healthcare.

Florida's state government includes the Governor, the bicameral Legislature (a 40-member Senate and 120-member House), and the Florida Supreme Court. Florida has been one of the fastest growing states for decades, but most of that growth has occurred in central and south Florida (Orlando, Tampa, Miami) rather than in the Panhandle. Tallahassee retains the feel of a small Southern college town despite being a state capital. The city is in a hilly, wooded area with abundant rainfall, distinct from the flat coastal plains of much of Florida.