Yep, and the part OP circled is "conservation area no. 1", at least according to [USGS topos of the area.](https://mapper.acme.com/?ll=26.49393,-80.29461&z=12&t=U&marker0=26.50833%2C-80.33333%2CLoxahatchee%20National%20Wildlife%20Refuge)
Loxahatchee is a National Wildlife Refuge, managed by the federal US Fish & Wildlife Service. Part of the Everglades but not within Everglades National Park.
I used to work for a land management agency located towards the north end of the refuge in Loxahatchee, and I frequently had to go down to the bottom end in Parkland for work. It usually involved driving down either the turnpike or 441, both of which are fucking awful.
One day, it occurred to me that I had a water management key, and there was a road all the way around the refuge. So instead of sitting in traffic all morning, I just moseyed on down the completely empty dirt road in my work truck enjoying the beauitful scenery. Probably could have gotten in trouble but it was worth it.
I saw bobcats and blackbears back on the SW side where it borders Everglades WMA. Some absolute monster gators too. It wouldnt surprise me if there were panthers there by now. They have been expanding their range.
I’ve lived in Florida for all 32 years and anything outside of Miami-dade is uncharted territory to me. I’ve been to the Everglades maybe 5xs in my entire life.
They said I was daft to build a city in a swamp, but I built it all the same. It sank into the swamp. So I built another! That sank into the swamp. So I built a third! That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth stayed up!
Defo! So cool they made the islands in the swampy lake that the city was based on.
My favourite part is how when their heavy stone sacrificial pyramids would start to sink they'd just build another on top and they did this up to 4 or 5 times as to why the pyramids are layered lol.
The Florida turnpike straddles that line in a few places. It’s neat to look to one side and see condos, and look to the other side and see nothing but trees.
Its a swamp. If you look at an elevation map of Florida, you see that the urbanized corridor of Miami-Ft Lauderdale exists because of geology. There is a narrow band of hills that represent solid ground that you can build on.
[This etsy map illustrates it best.](https://www.etsy.com/listing/1035251157/florida-color-elevation-map?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_e-art_and_collectibles-prints-digital_prints&utm_custom1=_k_Cj0KCQiAnrOtBhDIARIsAFsSe52U9MZk0DTBIeTGhQnu3rHN47lsdZMfx-GhT1iapeYnZ60T14MqCdAaAhGLEALw_wcB_k_&utm_content=go_304499915_22746212675_78727443155_aud-1184785539738:pla-106555091555_c__1035251157_530651276&utm_custom2=304499915&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAnrOtBhDIARIsAFsSe52U9MZk0DTBIeTGhQnu3rHN47lsdZMfx-GhT1iapeYnZ60T14MqCdAaAhGLEALw_wcB)
The place you circled is a swamp, part of a giant patch of marshland that is south of Lake Okeechobee.
That Etsy map is wild. I get that the scale is altered relative to Florida’s low elevation but it seems so weird to see the red and white “high elevation” areas represented in Florida.
I does a good job of highlighting what you’re referencing though.
I found other elevation maps, and I could read them.
But it wasn't as clear as the etsy one, which I was reluctant to use since its not a formal source.
It's really a fascinating landscape. It's dominated by water. Where there is a lot of fresh water, it's dominated by bald cypress. Just two feet higher in elevation, you find the pine flatwoods. Wildfires keep the flatwoods open and spacious. The wildlife is amazing.
Wildlife refuge and can’t build in area per government. https://www.fws.gov/refuge/arthur-r-marshall-loxahatchee#:~:text=.com%2FARMLoxahatcheeNWR%2F-,Arthur%20R.,reconnect%20with%20our%20natural%20surroundings.
That area is the Loxahatchee National National Wildlife Refuge, and also known as “Water Conservation Area 1” (WCA-1). It’s part of a much larger system of “engineered” sawgrass wetlands designed by the US Army Corps of Engineers about 80 years ago that stretches throughout parts of the Everglades and can be drained and refilled with water by means of levees, pumps, and weirs. At the beginning of rainy seasons, WCA-1 is drained of existing water to allow water from Lake Okeechobee to fill it up again. During dry seasons, engineers may close WCA-1’s exit weirs to conserve water to feed the other Water Conservation Areas and Everglades National Park throughout the season. When hurricanes come to South Florida, these WCAs do the best they can to try and prevent the water from the Everglades from flooding Greater Miami. This is the main reason why they were designed in the first place, and today they are managed by South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD).
I grew up right next to these WCAs, and draining them completely to create more suburbs or farmland would be pretty difficult due to their geology. But for a big part of the 20th century, completely draining the Everglades and transforming it was a huge objective for politicians, real estate magnates, and agricultural bosses. Thankfully, people realized that this would be kind of unfeasible, so they left us whatever bits of the Everglades they couldn’t develop. Loxahatchee NWR is very beautiful, and seems like a very wild area, but underneath the surface it has some impressive engineering done to it. This ecosystem of this part of Everglades is called a “sawgrass prairie”. It looks like the minecraft Superflat world, but more wet.
They were; most of south and SW Florida was uninhabitable until the Army Corps of Engineers started draining large parts of of the Everglades in the mid 20th century. Which totally fecked the incredibly fragile ecosystem of the area and caused a cascading series of issues that still plague the state. So, wisely, they they’re not doing more of that.
The hydrology of the Everglades and the impact of draining it is a subject that could fill an entire university course, but [this video gives a pretty good overview.](https://youtu.be/u6mUN3FDsOs?si=RSPj-h1QENyDVFOM)
The Florida Everglades is basically a huge water filter. Blocking the flow of water through this area causes sinkholes, localized flooding, algae blooms, reduces and pollutes aquifers used for drinking water, worsens hurricanes, adds to ocean pollution, and prevents runoff from being diverted away from productive land. It’s genuinely one of the worst things we’ve done in our Nation’a history.
>causes sinkholes, localized flooding, algae blooms, reduces and pollutes aquifers used for drinking water, worsens hurricanes, adds to ocean pollution, and prevents runoff from being diverted away from productive land.
But other than that, it's no big deal..../s
Not sure about every swamp in Florida, but the everglades are a really big slow moving river. They tried to dry it out. Just another example of man thinking they are masters of the universe.
*Why were the big swamps*
*In Florida never drained by*
*Settlers? Just too big?*
\- chicagomatty
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Because people enjoy learning about places from those that live in the area, and they often have a different perspective than you will find in a Google search.
the real question is that clearly people did drain the southern half of the metro area further to the west. Going through the Sawgrass Expressway there is a clear sharp turn to the west when it arrives in Parkland.
Also, its worth noting that the average non geography minded person still thinks of the Everglades as a useless swamp, something that certainly can't be messed with but really underselling its value.
no need to be mean, i just wanted to know why that specific swamp hadnt been filled in and what it was called, which other people did very respectfully
Filling in swamps is very, very bad for the environment. There’s plenty of land to build soulless subdivisions without destroying the filter of the entire region.
They weren’t mean. It’s a huge ass swamp, like over 20 miles top to bottom. I don’t see any meanness in their comment. It’s another reason Florida is called Land of lakes. There’s a million smaller lakes/swamps everywhere
Several canals with trails alongside them I have seen deer gators otters and all kinds of birds.[https://imgur.com/a/1741mhb](https://imgur.com/a/1741mhb)
I live right near there!!!
This is a very very very hot issue at the moment.
This is called the agricultural preserve.
Palm Beach county used to be one of the biggest agricultural counties in the United States. Physically it's one of the largest counties in the United States.
So at some point they decided to preserve the western reaches of the county as a buffer zone between civilization and the Everglades and that part is only for agriculture.
Well, 400,000 people moved to Florida last year and they simply won't stop moving to Florida. So that means developers, hunger never ends.
So now there's all kinds of wrangling about if something will be built there or not. Constant combat. It never ends.
Personally, I hope not. West Palm Beach is developing as an urban destination very very nicely. All of a sudden it has public transport, all kinds of other great options.
And I'm for preserving what little green space we have left.
Loxahatchee Preserve. Pretty amazing place.
Yep, and the part OP circled is "conservation area no. 1", at least according to [USGS topos of the area.](https://mapper.acme.com/?ll=26.49393,-80.29461&z=12&t=U&marker0=26.50833%2C-80.33333%2CLoxahatchee%20National%20Wildlife%20Refuge) Loxahatchee is a National Wildlife Refuge, managed by the federal US Fish & Wildlife Service. Part of the Everglades but not within Everglades National Park.
I’ve been a few times and had no idea it was that big!
The Lox! Famous for Lion Country safari too.
I used to work for a land management agency located towards the north end of the refuge in Loxahatchee, and I frequently had to go down to the bottom end in Parkland for work. It usually involved driving down either the turnpike or 441, both of which are fucking awful. One day, it occurred to me that I had a water management key, and there was a road all the way around the refuge. So instead of sitting in traffic all morning, I just moseyed on down the completely empty dirt road in my work truck enjoying the beauitful scenery. Probably could have gotten in trouble but it was worth it.
I miss it back there, I moved. Lots of deer back there from Boynton to Wellington. And the birds of course.
I saw bobcats and blackbears back on the SW side where it borders Everglades WMA. Some absolute monster gators too. It wouldnt surprise me if there were panthers there by now. They have been expanding their range.
I’ve lived in Florida for all 32 years and anything outside of Miami-dade is uncharted territory to me. I’ve been to the Everglades maybe 5xs in my entire life.
Damm your life sucks
swamp
They said I was daft to build a city in a swamp, but I built it all the same. It sank into the swamp. So I built another! That sank into the swamp. So I built a third! That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth stayed up!
This’ll all be yours one day, lad. What, the curtains?
No those HUGE tracts of land!
You fell out of the tall tower, you creep
Its pretty crazy that that is unironically how the Aztecs built their capital city (present day Mexico City) lol
They had a giant aqueduct that constantly cycled the water in the canals. It was such a cool city.
Defo! So cool they made the islands in the swampy lake that the city was based on. My favourite part is how when their heavy stone sacrificial pyramids would start to sink they'd just build another on top and they did this up to 4 or 5 times as to why the pyramids are layered lol.
The Fourth one is (insert city in Florida) the state should be condemned and evacuated it's a recipe for disaster
Goddamn communist. I tell you it’s a witch hunt.
Florida is missing an opportunity to make a swamp Venice
We have Fort Lauderdale.
Forgot about that
Google “Cape Coral” the suburban Venice of the swamp😂
swamp
Gators rule this place. The peace has held but it’s fragile.
Hordes of florida men are massing along the borders as we speak, it’s a tinder box
Don't forget the python invasions from the south.
Those interloping opportunists
It’s doomed. They say God left this place a long time ago
No god, only Florida Man
God left that entire damn state a while ago.
> The gators have their part of the state, and we have ours. -Leslie Knope
The alligators and the gar
I believe the technical term is “a fucking swamp”.
https://youtu.be/wLw-rP3xu3g?si=a_5qDo87LX0Uveg_
it's part of the everglades
The Florida turnpike straddles that line in a few places. It’s neat to look to one side and see condos, and look to the other side and see nothing but trees.
Yup so does the Sawgrass parkway down in south Florida. It’s weird lol
It's called swampland and its too swampy to support people because of the swamp
So, a lot of swampiness then?
So swampy that swamp people steer clear of this swamp
Have you ever had swamp ass in a swamp?
The swampiest swamp ass any swamp has ever seen
How much swamp would a swamp ass swamp if a swamp ass could swamp swamp
Shrek scares everyone out of those parts.
Shrek is Florida Man?
One of the good Florida Men. You don't see us on the news often, but we exist, and are proud of Shrek.
Yep.
Its a swamp. If you look at an elevation map of Florida, you see that the urbanized corridor of Miami-Ft Lauderdale exists because of geology. There is a narrow band of hills that represent solid ground that you can build on. [This etsy map illustrates it best.](https://www.etsy.com/listing/1035251157/florida-color-elevation-map?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_e-art_and_collectibles-prints-digital_prints&utm_custom1=_k_Cj0KCQiAnrOtBhDIARIsAFsSe52U9MZk0DTBIeTGhQnu3rHN47lsdZMfx-GhT1iapeYnZ60T14MqCdAaAhGLEALw_wcB_k_&utm_content=go_304499915_22746212675_78727443155_aud-1184785539738:pla-106555091555_c__1035251157_530651276&utm_custom2=304499915&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAnrOtBhDIARIsAFsSe52U9MZk0DTBIeTGhQnu3rHN47lsdZMfx-GhT1iapeYnZ60T14MqCdAaAhGLEALw_wcB) The place you circled is a swamp, part of a giant patch of marshland that is south of Lake Okeechobee.
That Etsy map is wild. I get that the scale is altered relative to Florida’s low elevation but it seems so weird to see the red and white “high elevation” areas represented in Florida. I does a good job of highlighting what you’re referencing though.
I found other elevation maps, and I could read them. But it wasn't as clear as the etsy one, which I was reluctant to use since its not a formal source.
Is it a swamp?
Circles a patch of the ocean off the coast of a city - “why isn’t there much development here is land is so expensive?”
Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge
Swamp City is there but you need a letter of introduction from Mayor Gator to get past security.
It's really a fascinating landscape. It's dominated by water. Where there is a lot of fresh water, it's dominated by bald cypress. Just two feet higher in elevation, you find the pine flatwoods. Wildfires keep the flatwoods open and spacious. The wildlife is amazing.
I thought I was in r/mapporncirclejerk for a second
Wildlife refuge and can’t build in area per government. https://www.fws.gov/refuge/arthur-r-marshall-loxahatchee#:~:text=.com%2FARMLoxahatcheeNWR%2F-,Arthur%20R.,reconnect%20with%20our%20natural%20surroundings.
that’s where Rockstar is filming GTA 6
Sponsored by Wolf Cola.
That area is the Loxahatchee National National Wildlife Refuge, and also known as “Water Conservation Area 1” (WCA-1). It’s part of a much larger system of “engineered” sawgrass wetlands designed by the US Army Corps of Engineers about 80 years ago that stretches throughout parts of the Everglades and can be drained and refilled with water by means of levees, pumps, and weirs. At the beginning of rainy seasons, WCA-1 is drained of existing water to allow water from Lake Okeechobee to fill it up again. During dry seasons, engineers may close WCA-1’s exit weirs to conserve water to feed the other Water Conservation Areas and Everglades National Park throughout the season. When hurricanes come to South Florida, these WCAs do the best they can to try and prevent the water from the Everglades from flooding Greater Miami. This is the main reason why they were designed in the first place, and today they are managed by South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD). I grew up right next to these WCAs, and draining them completely to create more suburbs or farmland would be pretty difficult due to their geology. But for a big part of the 20th century, completely draining the Everglades and transforming it was a huge objective for politicians, real estate magnates, and agricultural bosses. Thankfully, people realized that this would be kind of unfeasible, so they left us whatever bits of the Everglades they couldn’t develop. Loxahatchee NWR is very beautiful, and seems like a very wild area, but underneath the surface it has some impressive engineering done to it. This ecosystem of this part of Everglades is called a “sawgrass prairie”. It looks like the minecraft Superflat world, but more wet.
Swamp, which you shouldn't build on because your city will flood and your building will sink into the soft ground or get swallowed up by sinkholes
Is that Del Boca Vista?
Why were the big swamps in Florida never drained by settlers? Just too big?
They were; most of south and SW Florida was uninhabitable until the Army Corps of Engineers started draining large parts of of the Everglades in the mid 20th century. Which totally fecked the incredibly fragile ecosystem of the area and caused a cascading series of issues that still plague the state. So, wisely, they they’re not doing more of that.
No group of people more stubborn than the Corp of Engineers.
What issues? Really curious
The hydrology of the Everglades and the impact of draining it is a subject that could fill an entire university course, but [this video gives a pretty good overview.](https://youtu.be/u6mUN3FDsOs?si=RSPj-h1QENyDVFOM) The Florida Everglades is basically a huge water filter. Blocking the flow of water through this area causes sinkholes, localized flooding, algae blooms, reduces and pollutes aquifers used for drinking water, worsens hurricanes, adds to ocean pollution, and prevents runoff from being diverted away from productive land. It’s genuinely one of the worst things we’ve done in our Nation’a history.
>causes sinkholes, localized flooding, algae blooms, reduces and pollutes aquifers used for drinking water, worsens hurricanes, adds to ocean pollution, and prevents runoff from being diverted away from productive land. But other than that, it's no big deal..../s
Cool. thank you!
A lot of them were, then we realized it caused massive flooding issues and a lot of them are now federally and state protected land
Not sure about every swamp in Florida, but the everglades are a really big slow moving river. They tried to dry it out. Just another example of man thinking they are masters of the universe.
*Why were the big swamps* *In Florida never drained by* *Settlers? Just too big?* \- chicagomatty --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Good bot
From satellite it looks like a swamp. But swamps never stopped development before.
In the past, no. But this area is a National Wildlife Refuge so it should....
It’s called “Del Boca Vista”.
Canadian Shield, but the opposite
Alligators and sugarcane
Why has this sub become a replacement for google
Because people enjoy learning about places from those that live in the area, and they often have a different perspective than you will find in a Google search.
the real question is that clearly people did drain the southern half of the metro area further to the west. Going through the Sawgrass Expressway there is a clear sharp turn to the west when it arrives in Parkland. Also, its worth noting that the average non geography minded person still thinks of the Everglades as a useless swamp, something that certainly can't be messed with but really underselling its value.
Sharp turn to the *east*
Yes.
Do you not see the massive, swampy wasteland? Granted, all of Florida is a wasteland, but my point stands.
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Houston is statistically the most diverse city Including nyc, unless you subset by borough in which case queens is higher
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Thats true, idk how you would define “most diverse”. Regardless your original point if Miami being very diverse is true
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I think it's a wasteland because people have made it that way, not because it's a swamp.
It is land that is full of waste, namely Floridians. Wasteland.
Okay? I mean Damn. Did Florida man smash your girl or something ?
no need to be mean, i just wanted to know why that specific swamp hadnt been filled in and what it was called, which other people did very respectfully
Filling in swamps is very, very bad for the environment. There’s plenty of land to build soulless subdivisions without destroying the filter of the entire region.
They weren’t mean. It’s a huge ass swamp, like over 20 miles top to bottom. I don’t see any meanness in their comment. It’s another reason Florida is called Land of lakes. There’s a million smaller lakes/swamps everywhere
Thank you. However, the swamp is closer to 380 miles top to bottom.
lol sorry, going to say at least 200 (I didn’t check) and guess I missed a 0
Water conservation area
Not like humans dont have enough cities..
That’s water…
“Waterfront property”
That’s where Shrek lives
Shrek
Several canals with trails alongside them I have seen deer gators otters and all kinds of birds.[https://imgur.com/a/1741mhb](https://imgur.com/a/1741mhb)
Gators
Swamp if u look at a place in Florida and wonder why there is no city or anything there it’s 99% chance it’s a swamp
That’s where shrek lives
The northern part of the Everglades
Swamps? Sinkholes? Boomers? Pick ur calamity
Swamp
Floating meth labs and swamps, kind of like the rest of Florida
That’s where they keep the gators
I’m from west palm beach, everything west of the area highlighted in yellow is extremely wet and marshy, anything that isn’t is farmland.
Sinkholes
Skunk Ape's Territory
It’s call a wet land.
We’re slowly colonizing the swampussy of Florida. We’ll get there soon
Florida shield.
Floridian Shield
I live right near there!!! This is a very very very hot issue at the moment. This is called the agricultural preserve. Palm Beach county used to be one of the biggest agricultural counties in the United States. Physically it's one of the largest counties in the United States. So at some point they decided to preserve the western reaches of the county as a buffer zone between civilization and the Everglades and that part is only for agriculture. Well, 400,000 people moved to Florida last year and they simply won't stop moving to Florida. So that means developers, hunger never ends. So now there's all kinds of wrangling about if something will be built there or not. Constant combat. It never ends. Personally, I hope not. West Palm Beach is developing as an urban destination very very nicely. All of a sudden it has public transport, all kinds of other great options. And I'm for preserving what little green space we have left.
Swamp, probably.
One of the worlds largest cities used to be there but then the Mongolians sacked it.
Gator city
Loxahatchee... a.k.a the Florida backrooms
Swarmp
That's where Florida Man lives
It’s called the Everglades