Miami Map
The city of Miami covers about 56 square miles between Biscayne Bay and the Everglades — roughly 487,000 people in 2024 inside a metropolitan area more than ten times that size.
Where is Miami?
Miami is on the southeastern coast of Florida, near the bottom of the peninsula, facing Biscayne Bay rather than the open ocean — the beaches everyone pictures are on barrier islands across the water in Miami Beach, a separate city. It is about 30 miles south of Fort Lauderdale, roughly 235 miles southeast of Orlando, and some 345 miles south of Jacksonville, with Key West 160 miles down the island chain.
Miami at a glance
| State | Florida |
| County | Miami-Dade County |
| Population | 487,014 (2024 Census estimate) |
| Rank among US cities | No. 42 of the 100 largest |
| Time zone | Eastern Time |
| Region | South (South Atlantic division) |
Miami sits at No. 42 in the 2024 estimates, 2,251 people behind Omaha and 32,206 ahead of Virginia Beach. Within Florida it comes second of eight, behind Jacksonville. Against Florida's 23.37 million residents, though, that is only about 2.1%. It holds about 17% of Miami-Dade County's 2,838,461 residents.
Miami in Florida
Miami-Dade is the most populous of Florida's 67 counties and contains Hialeah as well as dozens of other municipalities, which is why the city proper looks small on the Florida county map beside its metro. The built-up strip runs 100 miles up the coast through Broward and Palm Beach counties without a real break. Tampa and Orlando hold the middle of the state and Tallahassee, the capital, is 470 miles away in the panhandle — see the Florida state page.
Limestone, a low ridge and the Everglades
Everything here is built on limestone laid down under a shallow sea, and the highest ground in the city is the Miami Rock Ridge, a few feet of oolite that kept the original settlement above the water table. Beyond it to the west the land drops into the Everglades, so the metro is pinned between wetland and bay and can only grow north and south along the Atlantic coast. That porous rock is also why sea level matters so much here: salt water moves through it rather than being held back by it. The Miami River, short and tidal, drains the ridge into Biscayne Bay.
Cities near Miami
Related pages: Hialeah, Port St. Lucie, Cape Coral, Tampa and Orlando. The South Atlantic division page runs the coast from here to Delaware.