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The Sunshine State and primary Weirdness Magnet for the United States, Florida is mainly known for a few things: weird stuff that happens Only In Florida, lots of beaches, illegal immigrants (primarily Caribbean rather than Mexican), and lots and lots of elderly northerners.
The "Sunshine State" moniker is a half lie as most Floridians can tell you - the state's climate has a pronounced cycle of wet and dry seasons, with summer featuring near-daily thundershowers and winter, such as it is, being very dry. Convenient for northerners looking to escape the snow (now if only more of them would go back once they've forked over their money...), not so much for those looking for a semi-tropical vacation spent mainly on the beach. Get used to the water, because Florida is a very wet state: surrounded on three sides by water and filled with swamps, wetlands, and retention ponds. Tourists, take note: if you're here during the summer, keep an umbrella on hand. Brief but intense thundershowers with little warning are common. Florida is also ridiculously flat. The highest point of elevation, Britton Hill, is just that, a hill, and a rather unimpressive one; some Disney rides are close to reaching its height.
Historically, Florida has always been a little distinct from the rest of the United States. The region was colonized by Europeans even before the French and English arrived in the northern parts of the continent, but was part of the Spanish empire. As a matter of fact, the Spanish gave Florida its name: Land of Flowers. For all practical purposes today, Florida's lengthy and Spanish-tinged history are irrelevant and largely unknown outside of the state's natives, and even then your typical Floridian won't know much beyond being taught about Spanish explorers of the state like Hernando de Soto back in elementary school. Good one for trivia night: Saint Augustine, on Florida's northeast coast, is the oldest continually inhabited city in North America. Great Britain acquired Florida from Spain in 1763, including an extra length from the northern state that was later chopped off and absorbed into Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
Up until the advent of air conditioning, Florida was part of the Deep South with all that that implies. The state was - and still is - a primarily agricultural state based on its famous citrus (especially oranges), livestock, and fishing. Florida was sparsely populated and generally had little significance and less impact on history, with the only notable exception being Key West, which was for a few decades the Richest City in the US, and one of the richest on the planet. The state did join the Confederacy in the American Civil War, but again not much of interest happened - quite a few Confederate blockade runners were based out of the state, Judah P. Benjamin escaped to England through the state and the only battle of any size that occurred in the state was a Confederate victory that made Congress question why people were dying for the worthless backwater to begin with.
Really, "worthless backwater" aptly sums up most of Florida until just before the start of the 20th Century when the construction of the railroads led to increased trade (mostly Citrus products, winter vegetables and Cattle) with the North, and the Cigar industry developed in Tampa. Following the Spanish American War, Tourism really picked up, and the combination of the efforts by railroad builders, and the Mild nature of winter in the state, the First Real estate boom led to the development of much of South Florida in the 1920's, and then following the end of World War II the development of air conditioning, highways (in case you haven't realized it, Florida is a big state for folks traveling north or south), and a second real estate boom lead to Florida's transformation into the conglomeration of suburbs, beaches, and retirement homes it is today. As has been noted, Florida natives tend to be relatively few in number compared to northern immigrants in the populated coastal regions. Some of these northerners are migratory and known to natives as "snowbirds" for their habit of fleeing to Florida from snow in the north and returning home once the snow melts. Lots of them stay, however, and Florida has a disproportionate number of elderly northerners in the state, second only to the American southwest. Most Floridians like the money the Tourists bring in, but wish they would go home after spending their money (Especially Yankees.) Note that it actually does snow in Florida on occasion. It's rare, usually coming once every couple of decades, normally restricted to the northern edges of the state, and very light when it does happen, but between Florida's very mild winters and generally dry winter and spring, Florida snowfall remains little more than a curiosity.
On that note, here's a quick way to distinguish natives from immigrants en masse: when a cold front hits and drops temperatures below 70 degrees F or so, natives will be the ones bundling up and talking about how it's freezing. Yes, this does qualify as cold in Florida. The flip side, of course, is that temperatures in the low to mid 90s with extremely high humidity are considered perfectly normal conditions by natives, and opening the front door anytime between May and September has been compared to walking into a sauna.
Today, there are three distinct Floridas within the state's borders. Old Florida, a proud part of the Deep South, is in fact alive and well - it just occupies inland and northern Florida, i.e. the parts of the state tourists don't see. Coastal Florida exchanged its man card and Southern credibility for lots of money, lots of sprawling suburbia, and lots of northerners. Southern Florida, especially around Miami has a distinctly Latin tinge and a working knowledge of Spanish can be a big help. You Should Know This Already, but tourism is Florida's biggest industry these days (but only just ahead of Agriculture) and is, along with California, one of the classic spring break and summer vacation destinations in the United States. Agriculture and phosphate mining are also common, but again are parts of the state that tourists usually don't see.
The Yanks With Tanks are also quite active within the state, and Florida is home to three of the ten Unified Combatant Commands, more than any other state or region in the world - the grand theater-level strategic commands. Central Command (USCENTCOM) which oversees operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) which oversees Central and South America plus the Caribbean, and Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) which oversees, well, special operations, all call Florida their home. NASA also has a major facility within the state: Kennedy Space Center, better known as Cape Canaveral, is the site of NASA's space launches. *
One unusual feature is the presence of pools in almost every middle-class and above house. This is partly because it's nigh-impossible to have a basement in Florida—once you dig fifteen feet, you hit groundwater. Instead, patios with small pools are almost a necessity if you want to re-sell your home, and these help attract out-of-state buyers thanks to the novelty factor.
Geographically, there are a number of different regions in Florida, only a few of which are relevant to visitors:
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