Miami

Offering an unique chance to explore the marine critters that live in the waters off Florida, the Miami Seaquarium is filled with fish and mammals, mollusks and plants. The animal park's most popular attractions are the daily open tank shows featuring Lolita the killer whale, Flipper the dolphin, Atlantic bottlenose dolphins and sea lions. Other areas of special interest are the Crocodile Flats, the Manatee Presentation and the Coral Reef Presentation. It is located on the Virginia Key island across the Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserve from Miami, north of Key Biscayne.

Jungle Island displays hundreds of tropical birds, reptiles, mammals and fish in fantastic natural-seeming habitats featuring lush tropical flowers and plants. Popular as a destination for exploring these beautiful and unusual creatures, some of the park's more unique creatures include a 900-pound lion and tiger crossbreed known as a liger, a one ton Saltwater/Siamese crocodile and an albino alligator. The attraction is beside Watson Park on Watson Island, west of Miami Beach.

Displaying works by contemporary artists, the Museum of the Americas primarily displays a rotating series of works by artists from all around the world. To supplement its temporary displays, the museum has a collection of hundreds of art works, primarily from artists from the western hemisphere and more specifically South America. The museum sits just a mile west of the Miami International Airport, less than 10 miles by car from downtown Miami.

Besides boasting more than 100 shops and 30 restaurants, this open-air market regularly offers live entertainment from bands to street performers. It features a mix of brand-name retailers such as Gap and Victoria’s Secret, and smaller shops such as Exotic Aromas and Opera Pearl. It is located next to American Airlines Arena and the Port of Miami.

The Miami Art Museum collects and displays a diverse range of art works that serve to reflect the area's multicultural community and worldwide heritage. Its permanent collection holds works by famous artists such as María Martínez-Cañas, George Segal and Christo, and these works are displayed along with many other temporarily displayed pieces in 15,000 square feet of exhibition space. One of the museum's main goals is education, and to this end it runs many classes, special events and lectures for interested participants of all ages. The museum is located downtown within the Miami-Dade Cultural Center, which also houses the Miami-Dade Public Library and the Historical Museum of Southern Florida.

Location of Miami in Miami-Dade County, Florida.Miami is a major city in the southeast corner of Florida, in the United States. Miami and the surrounding metropolitan area are situated on northern Biscayne Bay between the Everglades and the Atlantic Ocean. By population, Miami is the second-largest city in Florida (after Jacksonville), and the county seat and largest city of Miami-Dade County. It is also the largest city in the South Florida metropolitan area, which comprises Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and Palm Beach County, making up the largest metropolitan area in the Southeastern United States and the sixth largest in the country as a whole.Miami was officially incorporated as a city on July 28, 1896, with a voting population of just over 300. In 1940, 172,172 people lived in the city. According to the 2000 census, the city proper had a population of 362,470, while the larger metropolitan area had a population over 5,000,000. The U.S. Census Bureau estimate of the population of Miami in 2004 was 379,724[1].Miami's explosive population growth in recent years has been driven by internal migration from other parts of the country as well as by immigration. Greater Miami is regarded as a cultural melting pot, heavily influenced both by its very large population of ethnic Latin Americans and Caribbean islanders (many of them Spanish- or Haitian Creole-speaking).The region's importance as an international financial and cultural center has elevated Miami to the status of world city; because of its cultural and linguistic ties to North, South, and Central America, and the Caribbean it is sometimes called "The Gateway of the Americas." Miami ranks along with Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, and New Orleans, as one of the most important business centers in the Southeastern United States.