Key
Largo is an island in the upper Florida Keys archipelago
and, at 33 miles (53 km) long, the largest of the Keys.
It is also the northernmost of the Florida Keys in Monroe
County, and the northernmost of the Keys connected by U.S.
Highway 1 (the Overseas Highway). Its earlier Spanish name
was Cayo Largo, meaning Long Key.
Key Largo is
connected to the mainland in Miami-Dade County by two routes.
The Overseas Highway, which is U.S. Highway 1, enters Key
Largo at Jewfish Creek near the middle of the island and
turns southwest. Card Sound Road connects to the northern
part of Key Largo at Card Sound Bridge and runs eastward
to connect with County Road 905, which runs southwest and
joins U.S. 1 at about mile marker 106. These routes originate
at Florida City on the mainland.
Key Largo is
a popular tourist destination and calls itself the "Diving
Capital of the World" because the living coral reef
a few miles offshore attracts thousands of scuba divers
and sport-fishing enthusiasts. Key Largo's proximity to
the Everglades also makes it a premier destination for kayakers
and ecotourists. Automotive and highway pioneer and Miami
Beach developer Carl G. Fisher built Key Largo's famous
Caribbean Club in 1938 as his last project.
The island
gained fame as the setting for the 1948 Humphrey Bogart-Lauren
Bacall film Key Largo, although it was filmed entirely on
a Warner Brothers sound stage in Hollywood. The island's
main village, which had been known as Rock Harbor after
a nearby cove, changed its name to Key Largo after the film's
success.
There are three
census-designated places on the island of Key Largo: North
Key Largo, near the Card sound Bridge, Key Largo, eight
or nine miles from the southern end of the island, and Tavernier,
at the southern end of the island. Ocean Reef Club is a
private gated community and club at the northern end of
the island. None of Key Largo is an incorporated municipality,
so it is governed at the local level by Monroe County.
Key Largo is
situated between Everglades National Park to the north-west
and John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park to the east, the
first underwater park in the United States and the site
of the only living coral barrier reef in the continental
United States.
Geology
and geography
The island of Key Largo is an exposed, fossilized remnant
of a coral reef that was formed during a period of higher
sea level and then uncovered and eroded during a subsequent
ice age. The highest elevation is a slight ridge forming
the spine of the island, which rises to as high as about
15 feet. The land slopes from the spine down to sea level
on the oceanside and bayside.
The island's
substrate is called Key Largo Limestone; in many places,
fossilized corals and smooth, eroded limestone "caprock"
are visible at the surface. Solution holes, which are pockets
dissolved in the limestone by acidic rainwater, form shallow
depressions in the land.
The natural
shoreline of the island is generally rocky. A slippery,
gray, limestone-based clay called "marl" is the
shoreline and near-shore soil. There are no natural sand
beaches on the island.
Inland, decomposed
vegetation forms a rich, acidic humus soil up to about six
inches thick, topped by "leaf litter." The soil
supports a diverse flora of herbaceous plants and woody
shrubs and hardwood trees.
Key Largo's
climate is considered subtropical. Frost has never been
recorded in the island. |
