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[[File:Map of Florida Regions with Cities.png|thumb|400px|Florida's regions (Green: Florida Panhandle; Red: North Florida; Yellow: Central Florida; Blue: South Florida) and major cities]]
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.
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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.
[[File:Flag of Florida.svg|thumb|border|400px|Flag of Florida]]
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
Geographically, there are a number of different regions in Florida, only a few of which are relevant to visitors:
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