Cities Near Naples, Florida » Port Charlotte, Florida
Port Charlotte is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Charlotte County, Florida, United States. The population was 54,392 at the 2010 census.[3] It is part of the Punta Gorda, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Port Charlotte was named to Forbes’ list of “25 Best Places to Retire in 2015”, listed among the ten best places in the United States to retire for the year 2012 by U.S. News & World Report,[4] and was ranked at #1 in CNNMoney.com’s 2009 list of 25 Best Places to Retire.
History
The first people to call the Port Charlotte area home were the nomadic Paleo-Indians as they chased big game such as woolly mammoth southward during the last ice age around 10,000 BC.[5] At the time, Port Charlotte was not a coastal area;[5] the peninsula of Florida was much wider than it is today and much drier. As the ice melted, the sea level rose and Florida assumed the shape and climate it has today and the Paleo-Indians gave way to the Calusa, the “shell people.” The Calusa thrived on the southwest Florida coast and numbered over 50,000 when the first Spaniards reached the peninsula in the 16th century.[6] The arrival of the Europeans was devastating to the Calusa, as diseases such as smallpox and measles decimated the population. Eventually the Seminole would arrive from points to the north and establish themselves on the peninsula.[6]
In 1819, Florida was ceded by the Spanish and became a U.S. territory, and in 1845 Florida became the 27th state. For the first 100 years of statehood, the area around Port Charlotte was mostly undeveloped. Maps of the area at the turn of the 20th century show that most of the roads and railroads leading into southwest Florida had bypassed the Port Charlotte area.[7][8] Aside from some cattle ranches and small farming, the area was mostly uninhabited. This would change when the post-World War II boom opened people’s eyes to the possibility of developing land in Florida.
Geography and climate
Port Charlotte is located at the north end of the Charlotte Harbor Estuary, northwest of the city of Punta Gorda. It is 100 miles (160 km) south of Tampa and 65 miles (105 km) north of Naples. According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 32.3 square miles (83.7 km2), of which 28.4 square miles (73.6 km2) is land and 3.9 square miles (10.1 km2) (12.01%), is water.[3]
Port Charlotte has a warm humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfa) bordering on a tropical wet and dry climate (Köppen climate classification: Aw).[11] The summers are long, hot and humid with frequent afternoon thunderstorms. The winters are mild to warm with a pronounced drop in precipitation. Year round, the diurnal temperature change averages around 20 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees Celsius).