Southwest Florida consistently ranks near the top of lists of the best places to live and work. In 1996, Money magazine ranked all of southwest Florida's major cities in the top 20 "best places." Punta Gorda was ranked 2, Fort Myers/Cape Coral 6 and Naples 15. Residents are proud of their communities and embrace a solid work ethic. The costs of doing business and the unemployment rate are low.

     Fort Myers is ranked ninth among the Top 10 winter destinations in the U.S. according to a survey conducted by the American Society of Travel Agents and Fodor's. Other perennial winter destination favorites include Las Vegas, New York, Denver and San Diego. Mild weather, golf, and family attractions draw tourists to Florida, where Orlando continues to rank as the No. 1 destination.
If you are planning a Southwest Florida visit, we encourage you to access the website maintained by the Lee County Vacation and Convention Bureau: www.leeislandcoast.com.

     Two of the twentieth century's best known inventors - Thomas Edison and Henry Ford - built winter homes side-by-side on the Caloosahatchee River, early on staking claim to the Fort Myers area as a pre-eminent winter vacation escape. Hundreds of thousands of "snowbirds" have since followed in their lead.

Location
      Southwest Florida consists of five counties: Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry and Lee. Lee County is at the center of the area and encompasses 811 square miles. It is located 123 miles south of Tampa on the Gulf of Mexico. Although Cape Coral is the largest city in the county based on population and land area, Fort Myers is the governmental seat and the hub of the five-county trade area. Some 43% of Lee County residents live within the cities of Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Sanibel, Ft. Myers Beach and Bonita Springs.

     To the north, Charlotte County is 694 square miles of land, with an additional 219 square miles of water within its borders. Punta Gorda, the only incorporated city in Charlotte County, is the county seat. Collier County is the largest county in Southwest Florida at 2,020 square miles, and larger than the states of Delaware and Rhode Island. Naples is the county seat.

Glades County (1774 square miles) and Hendry County (1153 square miles) are located inland to the east of Charlotte and Lee counties, respectively.

2000 Demographics

Lee County population: 440,888, up 3l.6% from 1990
City of Cape Coral: 102,286, up 36.4% from 1990
City of Fort Myers: 48,208, 3000 more than 1990
Bonita Springs: 32,797
Lehigh Acres: 33,430, up 146%
Estero: 9,503, a 199% increase

Collier County: 251,377 compared to 152,099 in 1990,
an increase of 65%

State of Fla: 23.5% growth in the previous decade

Education
     Southwest Florida boasts 205 public and private schools with more than 98,000 students enrolled. All public schools are accredited by both the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and by the Florida Department of Education. Several schools have been recognized both statewide as well as nationally. More information about Florida public schools is available at www.firn.edu/doe/bin00005/menus/schools.html and the Lee County Public Schools at http://www.lee.k12.fl.us/.

      Southwest Florida is particularly proud of the vocational-technical schools that cater to the demands of local business and industry. The Southwest Florida Private Industry Council sponsors a highly successful job training partnership that provides employers a low cost, customized workforce training program. Edison Community College http://www.edison.edu/ offers Associate of Applied Science and Associate of Arts degrees. Florida's tenth public university, Florida Gulf Coast University http://www.fgcu.edu/ offers Bachelors and Masters degree programs and began operations in 1997 as the state's tenth and the nation's newest university.