Tampa is a major American city in Hillsborough County, on the west coast of Florida. It serves as its county seat^GR6. The population within the city limits in 2005, according to the Census was 333,040; it is the third-largest city in Florida, behind Jacksonville and Miami.

Tampa is a part of the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan area, most commonly referred to as the "Tampa Bay area". The four-county area is composed of roughly 2.7 million residents, making it the second largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the state behind Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, the third largest in the Southeastern United States, and the twelfth largest DMA Market in the United States.