
The Emerald Coast is an unofficial name for the coastal area in the US state of
Florida
Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...
on the
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...
that stretches about through five counties—
Escambia,
Santa Rosa,
Okaloosa,
Walton, and
Bay
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...
—which include Pensacola Beach, Navarre Beach, Fort Walton Beach, Destin, and Panama City Beach. Some south Alabama communities on the coast of
Baldwin County, such as
Gulf Shores,
Orange Beach, and
Fort Morgan, embrace the term as well.
Origin of term
Beginning in 1946, for marketing purposes the coast from
Fort Walton Beach to Panama City was named the "Playground of the Gulf Coast", as witnessed by the name of the Fort Walton Beach newspaper, the ''Playground News'', later the ''Playground Daily News'', and now the ''
Northwest Florida Daily News''.
In 1952, this stretch of coast was dubbed the "Miracle Whip" by Claude Jenkins, a local journalist. The term was reflected in the former
Miracle Strip Amusement Park, its successor
Miracle Strip at Pier Park and other local businesses. The name "Miracle Strip" was officially adopted by 35 officials and members of three district Florida Motor Courts Association chapters on March 14, 1956, at a meeting held at the Staff Restaurant in Fort Walton Beach, for the 100-mile stretch of scenic Highway 98's "fabulous string of motels, hotels and nightspots" from Pensacola to Panama City. Members included representatives of local chambers of commerce.
According to the ''Daily News'', the term Emerald Coast was coined in 1983 by a junior high school student, Andrew Dier, who won $50 in the contest for a new area slogan. Since then, the term has been expanded by popular usage to cover all of the northwest coast of Florida from Pensacola Beach to Panama City Beach.
The area and particularly the beaches along the Emerald Coast from Pensacola to Panama City are also referred to as the "Redneck Riviera", alluding to the strong
Southern culture of the hinterland.
Popular vacation destinations include
Panama City
Panama City, also known as Panama, is the capital and largest city of Panama. It has a total population of 1,086,990, with over 2,100,000 in its metropolitan area. The city is located at the Pacific Ocean, Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, i ...
,
Pensacola
Pensacola ( ) is a city in the Florida panhandle in the United States. It is the county seat and only city in Escambia County. The population was 54,312 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Pensacola metropolitan area, which ha ...
,
Pensacola Beach,
Gulf Breeze,
Navarre
Navarre ( ; ; ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre, is a landlocked foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Autonomous Community, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and New Aquitaine in France. ...
,
Navarre Beach,
Fort Walton Beach,
Niceville,
WaterColor
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...
,
Panama City Beach,
Destin, and
Seaside, a planned community whose iconic pastel-paint and tin-roof construction was made famous in the
Jim Carrey
James Eugene Carrey (; born January 17, 1962) is a Canadian and American actor and comedian. Known primarily for his energetic slapstick performances, he has received two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for BAFTA Awards and ...
movie ''
The Truman Show
''The Truman Show'' is a 1998 American Psychological film, psychological comedy-drama film written and co-produced by Andrew Niccol, and directed by Peter Weir. The film depicts the story of Truman Burbank (played by Jim Carrey), a man who is un ...
'', filmed in the area from 1996–1997. Other communities on the Emerald Coast are
Perdido Key,
Sandestin,
Mexico Beach,
Grayton Beach,
Inlet Beach, and
Santa Rosa Beach.
The area is a family drive destination, attracting tourists from across the
Southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, Dixieland, or simply the South) is List of regions of the United States, census regions defined by the United States Cens ...
due to its close proximity. The Emerald Coast is a three-hour drive east of
New Orleans
New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...
.
In the first decade of the 21st century, the popularity of the Emerald Coast expanded greatly, leading to new construction and rapid growth. Many development communities similar to Seaside sprang up in the southern part of
Walton County and at the western end of Panama City Beach, raising property values.
Deep-sea fishing is an area attraction, with Destin holding the nickname "World's Luckiest Fishing Village" (and several saltwater world records) and Panama City Beach hosting the annual high-dollar Bay Point Billfish Invitational. The area has many seafood restaurants.
On 15 October 2019, the Okaloosa Board of County Commissioners approved a new “destination logo” that the Tourist Development Council had recommended, to be introduced in the TDC's new marketing campaign beginning in January 2020. The “Emerald Coast” will be dropped for a simplified logo reading Destin Fort Walton Beach, Florida. This aligns with the renaming of the Northwest Florida Regional Airport to the
Destin–Fort Walton Beach Airport in February 2015.
Military bases
This part of Florida is home to numerous military bases, with installations including
Naval Air Station Pensacola (home of the Navy's
Blue Angels
The Blue Angels, formally named the U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, are a Aerobatics, flight demonstration squadron of the United States Navy.. Blue Angels official site. Formed in 1946, the unit is the second oldest formal aerobatics ...
demonstration team and the initial training site for all naval aviators),
Hurlburt Field
Hurlburt Field is a United States Air Force installation located in Okaloosa County, Florida, immediately west of the town of Mary Esther. It is part of the greater Eglin Air Force Base reservation and is home to Headquarters Air Force S ...
,
Eglin Air Force Base
Eglin Air Force Base is a United States Air Force (USAF) base in the western Florida panhandle, located about southwest of Valparaiso, Florida, Valparaiso in Okaloosa County, Florida, Okaloosa County.
The host unit at Eglin is the 96th Test ...
(one of the largest military bases in America),
Tyndall Air Force Base
Tyndall Air Force Base is a United States Air Force Base located east of Panama City, Florida. The base was named in honor of World War I pilot 1st Lt. Frank Benjamin Tyndall. The base operating unit and host wing is the 325th Fighter Wing (3 ...
, Coastal Systems Station-Naval Surface Warfare Center (home to the
Navy Experimental Diving Unit and Naval Diving & Salvage Training Center), and
Corry Station Naval Technical Training Center. Two other military bases,
Duke Field and
Naval Air Station Whiting Field
Naval Air Station Whiting Field is a United States Navy base located near Milton, Florida, with some outlying fields near Navarre, Florida, in south and central Santa Rosa County, and is one of the Navy's two primary pilot training bases (the ...
are also in the area but are located inland from the coast.
In popular culture
The well-established military presence in the region has led to many film appearances, the earliest being the practice takeoff runs by
Doolittle Raiders for ''
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo'', shot at
Peel Field, an auxiliary field at
Eglin Field, in 1944. Some scenes in the 1949 film ''
Twelve O'Clock High'', another film about World War II, were also shot at Eglin.
The 1972 eco-horror film ''
Frogs
A frog is any member of a diverse and largely semiaquatic group of short-bodied, tailless amphibian vertebrates composing the order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek , literally 'without tail'). Frog species with rough skin texture due to ...
'' was filmed in
Walton County, Florida
Walton County is a County (United States), county located on the Emerald Coast in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Florida, with its southern border on the Gulf of Mexico. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the populat ...
, in and around the Wesley House, an old Southern mansion located in
Eden Gardens State Park in the town of
Point Washington, situated on Tucker Bayou off
Choctawhatchee Bay.
Exterior shots and several interior scenes for 1998's ''
The Truman Show
''The Truman Show'' is a 1998 American Psychological film, psychological comedy-drama film written and co-produced by Andrew Niccol, and directed by Peter Weir. The film depicts the story of Truman Burbank (played by Jim Carrey), a man who is un ...
'' were filmed in Seaside.
The 1998 Sega Dreamcast game ''Sonic Adventure'' features a level called Emerald Coast.
The majority of scenes for ''
Jaws 2
''Jaws 2'' is a 1978 American horror thriller film directed by Jeannot Szwarc and co-written by Carl Gottlieb. It is the sequel to Steven Spielberg's '' Jaws'' (1975), and the second installment in the ''Jaws'' franchise. The film stars Roy ...
'' (1978) were filmed in the region, in the
Navarre
Navarre ( ; ; ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre, is a landlocked foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Autonomous Community, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and New Aquitaine in France. ...
area. Interiors for the youth's pinball hang-out were filmed in Fort Walton Beach at the now-razed original location of Hog's Breath Saloon on
Okaloosa Island, and Bruce the Shark's control sled was placed on the bottom of the Gulf off
Navarre Beach and the mainland community of
Navarre
Navarre ( ; ; ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre, is a landlocked foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Autonomous Community, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and New Aquitaine in France. ...
.
"Redneck Riviera" is the title of a song by
Tom T. Hall (from his 1996 album ''
Songs from Sopchoppy'') about this region and the nearby
Forgotten Coast. The song's lyrics include:
:''
Gulf Shores up through
Apalachicola''
:''They got beaches of the whitest sand''
:''Nobody cares if Grandma's got a
tattoo
A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing processes ...
''
:''Or
Bubba's got a hot wing in his hand''
Parts of John Grisham's book ''
The Whistler'' (2016) take place in and around the Emerald Coast.
See also
*
Florida Panhandle
The Florida panhandle (also known as West Florida and Northwest Florida) is the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Florida. It is a Salient (geography), salient roughly long, bordered by Alabama on the west and north, Georgia (U.S. state ...
*
Forgotten Coast (neighboring coastal area to the east)
*
South Alabama (neighboring coastal area to the west)
*
West Florida
West Florida () was a region on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico that underwent several boundary and sovereignty changes during its history. Great Britain established West and East Florida in 1763 out of land acquired from France and S ...
References
Further reading
*Bouler, Jean Lufkin. ''Exploring Florida's Emerald Coast: A Rich History and a Rare Ecology.'' University of Florida Press, 2007.
Hollis, Tim. ''Florida's Miracle Strip: From Redneck Riviera to Emerald Coast.''University of Mississippi Press, 2004.
*Jackson, Harvey H., III. "The Rise and Decline of the Redneck Riviera: The Northern Rim of the Gulf Coast since World War II," ''Southern Cultures'', 16 (Spring 2010), 7–30.
*Reynolds, Robert O.. ''Florida's Emerald Coast, A Pathway to Paradise.'' Emerald Waters Press, 2023.
External links
Emerald Coast Convention And Visitors Bureau WebsitePensacola News-JournalNorthwest Florida Daily NewsPanama City News HeraldEmerald Coast Gazette News
{{Coord, 30.4, -86.5, region:US-FL, display=title
Regions of Florida
Gulf Coast of the United States
Coasts of Florida