Fun Facts: The Florida Everglades

This complex ecosystem provides habitat for a vast range of wildlife, including many endangered species that call the sawgrass prairies, swamps, and mangrove forests home.
What’s in a name?
The Seminole people call the Everglades region “Pa-hay-okee,” which means “grassy water.” An 18th-century British mapmaker named Brahm called the area the “River Glades,” which later cartographers changed to the “Ever Glades.” The word “Everglades” was first seen on an 1823 map.
A changing landscape
The Everglades cover about 2 million acres, stretching from Lake Okeechobee to the Florida Bay. It is an ever-changing mix of marshes, prairies and forests. The landscape shifts, grows, and shrinks. Sometimes an ecosystem will disappear, only to reappear years later. Climate, fire, and water all play important roles in shaping the landscape.
Since the 1800s, humans have been trying to reshape and control this land. Water diversions, such as canals for flood control and the creation of land through drainage, have impacted the Everglades. Agriculture, urban development and the introduction of invasive species have also taken a toll on this wilderness.

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