Current Time in Miami, United States

Miami is a major coastal city located at the southeastern tip of Florida, on the Atlantic coast of the United States. Situated between Biscayne Bay to the east and the Florida Everglades to the west, it occupies a flat, subtropical landscape defined by warm turquoise waters, white sand beaches, and a year-round tropical climate. Miami is the southernmost major metropolitan area in the continental United States and serves as the cultural, economic, and financial capital of the Caribbean basin and much of Latin America.

The city proper has a population of approximately 450,000, but the Miami metropolitan area — encompassing Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties — is home to over six million people, making it the ninth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Miami is consistently ranked as a global city with world-class influence in finance, commerce, entertainment, arts, and international trade.

The area was inhabited by the Tequesta people for thousands of years before European contact. Spanish explorers arrived in the 16th century but significant permanent settlement did not occur until the 1870s. Miami was incorporated as a city only in 1896, triggered by the arrival of Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway. Growth was rapid and often explosive — land booms in the 1920s, post-World War II suburbanization, and successive waves of immigration — particularly the Cuban exile community after 1959 — completely transformed the city. Today, Miami is perhaps the most thoroughly bilingual (English-Spanish) major city in the United States, with deep cultural roots in Cuba, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.

Miami's iconic landmarks are globally recognized. South Beach on Miami Beach features the world's finest collection of Art Deco architecture, preserved in the historic district along Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue. Wynwood Walls is a groundbreaking outdoor street art museum that transformed a former warehouse district into an international contemporary art destination. Vizcaya Museum and Gardens is a stunning Italian Renaissance-style villa set on Biscayne Bay. The Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), the Frost Museum of Science with its spectacular aquarium, and the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts anchor a thriving cultural corridor downtown. Everglades National Park — one of the world's great wilderness areas — is just an hour's drive west.

Culturally, Miami is unlike any other American city. It is Latin American and Caribbean in its music, food, language, and social rhythms, while simultaneously being a global capital of nightlife, fashion, and high art. Salsa, reggaeton, and Afro-Caribbean beats fill the air from Little Havana to Coconut Grove. The city's restaurant scene is extraordinary, reflecting cuisines from across Latin America, the Caribbean, and the world. Art Basel Miami Beach, held each December, is the Western Hemisphere's most important contemporary art fair and draws the global art world to the city each year.

Miami International Airport is one of the busiest in the United States for international passenger traffic, with especially strong connections to Latin America. PortMiami is the world's busiest cruise port. The Metrorail, Metromover, and Tri-Rail commuter rail systems provide public transit options, though the city remains largely car-dependent. Major highways including I-95 and I-395 link the city to the broader Florida road network.

The University of Miami, Florida International University, and numerous other institutions provide world-class higher education, with strengths in medicine, law, business, and marine science reflecting the city's geographic and economic character.

Miami's economy is among the most diversified of any American city — finance and banking (the city is a major hub for international banking), real estate, tourism, trade, entertainment, and a booming technology and startup sector all contribute. The city handles over 40% of all US trade with Latin America.

Miami is one of the world's great cities — a place of perpetual sunshine, vivid color, relentless energy, and extraordinary cultural complexity, where the United States meets the Americas in the most vivid and dynamic way imaginable.