50 Fun Facts About Miami

Miami is noted as the only major US city founded by a woman. Who was she?

A citrus grower originally from Cleveland, she owned the land the city was built on and is remembered as 'the mother of Miami'.

Which railroad tycoon did Miami's founder persuade to extend his Florida East Coast Railway to the city?

Flagler, a co-founder of Standard Oil, had planned to stop at West Palm Beach until the Great Freeze of 1894-95 spared Miami's crops and changed his mind.

Miami was officially incorporated as a city on July 28 of which year?

About 400 men voted for incorporation and the population was just over 300; there were no women among the voters, city founder notwithstanding.

The name Miami comes from 'Mayaimi', the historic name of which body of water?

The word passed to the Miami River and from there to the city; the Native Americans who lived around the lake shared the name.

Which tribe occupied the Miami area for around 2,000 years before Europeans arrived?

The US built Fort Dallas on the Miami River in 1836 during its campaign against the Seminoles, who came to the region much later.

Miami's nickname 'The Magic City' came from what?

Winter visitors said the city grew so much from one year to the next that it seemed like magic; other nicknames include The 305 and Vice City.

Miami is the largest US city with a plurality of which ethnic group?

It is also the second-largest US city with a Spanish-speaking majority, behind El Paso, and about 70% Hispanic overall.

Which street is the heart of Little Havana, and lends its name to a March festival?

It is SW 8th Street, part of the Tamiami Trail; the festival shuts down 15 blocks of it and draws over a million people.

In 1988 Little Havana's big March street festival set a Guinness World Record for what?

The line was 119,986 people long; the festival was started by Cuban exiles in 1978 and is run by the Kiwanis Club of Little Havana.

The Little Havana plaza where older Cuban men gather to play a certain game is nicknamed what?

It has become a tourist stop where visitors can watch the games and drink cafecito with the regulars.

Miami's Freedom Tower, modelled on Seville's Giralda, was built in 1925 as the headquarters of what?

The Miami News printed there until 1966; in the 1960s the federal government used the building to process refugees from the Cuban Revolution.

In which year did the Mariel boatlift bring about 125,000 Cubans to Florida?

It began after 10,000 Cubans crowded into the Peruvian embassy in Havana seeking asylum and Castro announced that anyone who wanted to leave could go.

Al Pacino's Tony Montana arrives in Miami during the Mariel boatlift in which 1983 film?

Brian De Palma planned to shoot the whole film in Miami, but the Cuban community objected to the script and much of it was filmed in Los Angeles instead.

Miami Vice's Sonny Crockett lived on a sailboat with a pet alligator named what?

Don Johnson's detective also drove a Ferrari Daytona Spyder (actually a replica on a Corvette chassis) and later a Testarossa.

By a much-repeated story, NBC's Brandon Tartikoff pitched Miami Vice with a two-word memo reading what?

Creator Anthony Yerkovich says the memo story was invented more than a year after the real pitch, which was about asset-forfeiture laws.

The executive producer of NBC's Miami Vice imposed which rule on the show's look?

Michael Mann's pastels-only palette rode an Art Deco revival, and the show's first season picked up an unprecedented 15 Emmy nominations.

The 1995 film Bad Boys was whose feature directing debut?

The producers had first imagined Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz in the roles, and the story was originally set in New York.

Will Smith's 1998 single 'Miami' samples 'And the Beat Goes On' by which group?

The track came from his debut solo album Big Willie Style and reached number 17 in the US and number three in the UK.

The Ultra Music Festival, held most years in Bayfront Park, is named after a 1997 album by which band?

Founded in 1999 by Russell Faibisch and Alex Omes, it started as a two-day event on Miami Beach and now runs alongside Miami Music Week.

The Miami Heat began play as an NBA expansion team in which season?

The Orlando Magic, Charlotte Hornets and Minnesota Timberwolves were awarded franchises in the same 1987 expansion.

How many NBA championships have the Miami Heat won?

The first came in 2006 with Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O'Neal; the 'Big Three' of Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh added back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013.

In which year did the Miami Dolphins complete the NFL's only perfect season?

They finished 14-0 in the regular season, won Super Bowl VII, and became the first team to reach three straight Super Bowls under Don Shula.

The Dolphins were founded in 1965 by attorney Joe Robbie and which comedian and actor?

The pair paid $7.5 million for the AFL franchise; Thomas later sold his stake, and the Dolphins are the oldest professional sports team in Florida.

The Marlins won the World Series in 1997 and 2003 despite never having done what?

All four of their playoff trips came as wild cards, and both titles were followed by fire-sales of the expensive players.

The Marlins' LoanDepot Park in Little Havana was built on the site of which demolished stadium?

The Orange Bowl hosted five Super Bowls and decades of University of Miami football before it came down.

Inter Miami's first major trophy, won weeks after Lionel Messi's 2023 debut, was what?

The club, co-owned by David Beckham thanks to a clause in his 2007 LA Galaxy contract, added its first Supporters' Shield in 2024.

PortMiami holds which superlative among the world's ports?

It leads the world in both cruise passengers and cruise lines, and moved to Dodge Island after a 1960 county resolution.

Miami's Metromover, an elevated people mover with 21 stations, costs riders what?

The free system runs three lines around Downtown and Brickell with a stop roughly every two blocks.

The city's grid uses Flagler Street as its east-west baseline and which road as the north-south one?

The two meet in front of the downtown Macy's, and every address carries NW, NE, SW or SE from that corner.

Snow flurries fell on parts of Miami on January 19 of which year, the only time on record?

No official weather station has ever recorded measurable snowfall; the coldest daytime high on record came in the December 1989 cold wave.

What is the city's bedrock limestone, formed from tiny calcium carbonate spheres, called?

It formed when ice-age sea levels rose about 130,000 years ago and turned the region into a shallow lagoon.

Hurricane Andrew struck the Miami area as a Category 5 storm on August 24 of which year?

It flattened Homestead and Florida City, and escaped Burmese pythons from a destroyed facility began colonising the Everglades.

Andrew was the costliest hurricane in US history until which storm surpassed it in 2005?

It remains one of only four Category 5 landfalls in the continental US, alongside the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, Camille and Michael.

Vizcaya, the Italian Renaissance-style villa on Biscayne Bay, was built for which industrialist?

His fortune came from International Harvester; the estate later hosted Reagan's 1987 meeting with Pope John Paul II and the first Summit of the Americas in 1994.

Who developed Coral Gables, the Mediterranean-style planned city home to the University of Miami, in the 1920s?

It was incorporated in April 1925, the same year the Biltmore Hotel opened, and still enforces strict zoning to keep the look.

Between which years was most of Miami Beach's Art Deco Historic District built?

The preservation campaign was led by Barbara Baer Capitman, who has a street in the district named after her.

What record did the 1913 Collins crossing from Miami Beach to the mainland hold when it opened?

John Collins ran out of money and Indianapolis millionaire Carl Fisher paid to finish it in exchange for land.

Which fashion designer was killed outside his Ocean Drive mansion, Casa Casuarina, in July 1997?

The house is now a boutique hotel and one of the most photographed doorsteps in South Beach.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas's 1947 book gave the Everglades which enduring nickname?

The name describes the slow sheetflow of water across the marsh; Douglas was still campaigning against a jetport there at 79.

Miami-Dade County, the most populous in Florida, was known simply as Dade County until which year?

It is named for Major Francis Dade, killed in 1835 in the Second Seminole War; the county's 'father' Richard Fitzpatrick had wanted a different name.

Miami International Airport is the primary Latin gateway for which US carrier, its third-largest hub?

In 2021 MIA became the busiest US airport for both international cargo and international passengers.

Which Miami neighbourhood, settled in 1825 and annexed in 1925, is home to City Hall at Dinner Key?

It is one of the oldest settled areas of the city, with winding roads and a heavy tree canopy that survived the highrise boom.

Wynwood, north of downtown, is best known for what?

The former warehouse district hosts Miami Fashion Week alongside its large mural project.

Brickell Avenue in downtown Miami has the largest US concentration of what?

That financial density is why Miami is called the Capital of Latin America; Brickell was named for trader William Brickell, who ran a post on the Miami River.

Flagler's railway did not stop at Miami. In 1912 the Overseas Railroad reached which final destination?

The line across the Keys was wrecked by the 1935 Labor Day hurricane and its remains became the roadbed for the Overseas Highway.

Julia Tuttle came to Fort Dallas, the future Miami, from which northern city?

Fellow pioneer William Brickell had also lived in Cleveland, where the two first met.

What was Miami's population at the 1900 census, four years after incorporation?

By 1950 it had rocketed to 249,276, making it Florida's largest city until Jacksonville's 1968 consolidation.

PortMiami's cruise terminals sit on which combined landmass in Biscayne Bay?

Dodge, Lummus and Sam's Islands were merged into one and linked to downtown by Port Boulevard.

Construction of the $1 billion PortMiami Tunnel, linking the port to I-395, began in which year?

Before it opened, the only way in and out of the port was through downtown surface streets.

Among North American harbours, PortMiami ranks second for Latin American cargo imports behind which?

China is nevertheless the port's number one import country.