Miami [ b ] is a coastal city in the U. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area , which, with a population of 6. Miami has the third-largest skyline in the U. Miami is a major center and leader in finance, commerce, culture, arts, and international trade. Downtown Miami has among the largest concentrations of international banks in the U. PortMiami , the city's seaport, is the busiest cruise port in the world in both passenger traffic and cruise lines.
The Miami metropolitan area is the second-most visited city or metropolitan statistical area in the U. Miami was named after the Miami River , derived from Mayaimi , the historic name of Lake Okeechobee and the Native Americans who lived around it.
The Tequesta tribe occupied the Miami area for around 2, years before contact with Europeans. It is believed that the entire tribe migrated to Cuba by the mids. A Spanish mission was constructed one year later. Spain, and briefly Britain , ruled Florida until it ceded it to the United States in In , the U. As a result, the Miami area became a site of fighting in the Second Seminole War.
Miami is noted as the only major city in the United States founded by a woman. Julia Tuttle , a local citrus grower and a wealthy Cleveland native, was the original owner of the land upon which Miami was built. Julia Tuttle subsequently convinced railroad tycoon Henry Flagler to extend his Florida East Coast Railway to the region, for which she became known as "the mother of Miami".
During the early 20th century, migrants from the Bahamas and African-Americans constituted 40 percent of the city's population. Miami prospered during the s with an increase in population and development in infrastructure as northerners moved to the city. The legacy of Jim Crow was embedded in these developments. Miami's chief of police at the time, H. Leslie Quigg , did not hide the fact that he, like many other white Miami police officers, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
