Lakeland, FL
| City of Lakeland | |
|---|---|
| City | |
Downtown Lakeland
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 Location in Polk County and the state of Florida |
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| Coordinates: 28°2′28″N 81°57′32″W / 28.04111°N 81.95889°WCoordinates: 28°2′28″N 81°57′32″W / 28.04111°N 81.95889°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Florida |
| County | Polk |
| Settled | c. 1875 |
| Incorporated (city) | January 1, 1885 |
| Government | |
| • Type | Commission-Manager |
| • Mayor | Howard Wiggs (2014) |
| • City Manager | Anthony "Tony" Delgado |
| Area | |
| • City | 74.4 sq mi (193 km2) |
| • Land | 68.79 sq mi (178.2 km2) |
| • Water | 5.61 sq mi (14.5 km2) 10.9% |
| Elevation | 197 ft (60 m) |
| Population (2013) | |
| • City | 100,710 |
| • Density | 1,711/sq mi (660.8/km2) |
| • Metro | 584,383 |
| Census Bureau American Community Survey | |
| Time zone | EST (UTC-5) |
| • Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC-4) |
| ZIP code | 33801–33815 |
| Area code(s) | 863 |
| FIPS code | 12-38250 |
| GNIS feature ID | 0294459 |
| Website | http://www.lakelandgov.net/ |
| Twinned with Richmond Hill, Ontario; Imabari, Ehime, Japan; Balti, Moldova; Portmore, Jamaica; and Chongming County, Shanghai, China | |
Lakeland is a city in Polk County, Florida, United States, east of Tampa. According to the 2013 U.S. Census Bureau estimate, the city had a population of 100,710. Lakeland is a principal city of the Lakeland–Winter Haven Metropolitan Statistical Area (coterminous with Polk County), which had an estimated population of 623,009 in July 2013 based on data from the University of Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research. It is twinned with Richmond Hill, Ontario; Imabari, Ehime, Japan; Balti, Moldova; Portmore, Jamaica; and Chongming County, Shanghai, China through the Lakeland chapter of Sister Cities International.
Native Americans began to live in the area 12,000 years ago. White settlers arrived in Lakeland in the 1870s and the city expanded in the 1880s with the arrival of rail service. Lakeland is home to the 1,267-acre Circle B Bar Reserve.
The first Paleo-Indians reached the central Florida area near the end of the last ice age, as they followed big game south. As the ice melted and sea levels rose, these Native Americans ended up staying and thrived on the peninsula for thousands of years. By the time the first Spanish conquistadors arrived, more than 250,000 Native Americans were living on the peninsula. Some of these first early tribes were the , Timucua, and Calusa. In 1527, a Spanish map showed a settlement near the Rio de la Paz. The arrival of the Spanish turned out to be disastrous to these Native American tribes. Within 150 years, the majority of the pre-Columbian Native American peoples of Florida had been wiped out. Those who had not succumbed to diseases such as smallpox or yellow fever were either killed or enslaved. Little is left of these first Native Americans cultures in Polk County except for scant archaeological records, including a few personal artifacts and shell mounds. Eventually, the remnants of these tribes merged with the Creek Indians who had arrived from the north and became the Seminole Indian tribe.
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