MIAMI, a city of south-eastern Florida, U.S.A., the county seat of Dade county; on Biscayne bay, at the mouth of the Miami river, from which a canal extends to Lake Okeechobee. It is on federal highways 1 and 94; has two municipal and one commercial airport ; and is served by the Florida East Coast and the Seaboard Air Line railways, the Pan-American Airway and various steamship lines. The population was (32% ne groes) in 1925 (State census) ; 131,286 in 1926, after annexations of territory (special enumeration under the supervision of the Federal Census bureau) ; but was 110,637 in 193o by Federal cen sus. Miami is the metropolis of south-eastern Florida, with a history which justifies its sobriquet "the magic city." Founded in 1896, by 1927 it had an assessed valuation of $389,853,131; its bank clearings in 1926 totalled $855,200,000; and in January 1928, it celebrated the completion of a programme of improve ments costing $300,000,000. The city (on latitude 25° 47') has a sub-tropical climate and vegetation. The average monthly mean temperature ranges from 66.5° F in January to 81.4° in August, and the extremes on record are 27° and 97°. Facilities are at hand for every conceivable sport and variety of recreation compatible with the climate. The harbour and channel (3.5 m.) to the ocean have been deepened by the Federal Government to 25 ft., accom modating large ocean-going vessels, and improvement of the inland waterway to Jacksonville is under way. Along the bay for 15 m. runs a 10o ft. boulevard, bordered with royal palms, and a water-front park has been created by filling in 43 acres. A
27-story county courthouse was completed in 1927, and office buildings and hotels are on a corresponding scale. Miami has extensive commercial fisheries, and its manufacturing industries (with an output in 1927 valued at $10,249,710) are already im portant and diversified. It ships large quantities of grapefruit, oranges, limes, pineapples, avocados, and other fruits, coconuts, and early vegetables.
In 1896 Henry M. Flagler extended the Florida East Coast railway to Miami (then a little Indian trading post consisting of two dwellings, a storehouse, and the small stone Ft. Dallas, erected in 1836 during the Seminole wars), and began the construction of the Royal Palm hotel. On July 28, 1896, the city was incorpo rated, with a population of 26o. By 1910 it had grown to 5471; by 192o to 29,571. It was one of the principal foci in the rush to Florida which began in 1922. At the opening of the winter of 1925-26, when the boom was at its height, adventurers were arriving from all parts of the United States by rail, steamer, auto mobile, mule and on foot, at the rate of 6,000 a day, and leaving at the rate of 2,000 a day. Shelter was at a premium. Building was pushed at top speed, and tent colonies sprang up until they presented a serious sanitary problem. In September 1926, the city was seriously damaged by a West Indian hurricane, but it escaped with slight loss in the storm of 1928. The city is under a commission-manager form of government.