Cape Coral Map
Cape Coral was dredged into existence out of low ground west of the Caloosahatchee, and it now has more miles of canal frontage than almost any city in the world.
Where is Cape Coral?
Cape Coral is on the southwest coast of Florida, directly across the Caloosahatchee River from Fort Myers. Tampa is about 120 miles north, Miami roughly 150 miles east across the peninsula on Alligator Alley, and Port St. Lucie some 150 miles northeast on the Atlantic side. Naples lies about 40 miles south down Interstate 75, and Sanibel and Captiva islands are offshore to the southwest.
Cape Coral at a glance
| State | Florida |
| County | Lee County |
| Population | 233,025 (2024 Census estimate) |
| Rank among US cities | No. 99 of the 100 largest |
| Time zone | Eastern Time |
| Region | South (South Atlantic division) |
Cape Coral in Florida
Cape Coral is the largest city in Lee County by population, though the county seat is Fort Myers across the river — the Florida county map shows Lee as one of the fast-growing southwest counties. Of Florida's eight entries among the hundred largest cities this is much the youngest: Cape Coral was not incorporated until 1970, when Jacksonville, Miami and Tampa were already old cities. The Florida state page covers the Gulf side of the state.
Four hundred miles of canals
The land was pine flatwoods and mangrove when developers began platting it in the late 1950s. Their method was dredge-and-fill: dig a canal, pile the spoil beside it, and sell the resulting dry ridge as waterfront lots. Repeated across the whole peninsula, that produced a network of roughly 400 miles of canals, some of them navigable to the Gulf and some landlocked, and a street pattern of long curving loops rather than a grid. The Caloosahatchee, which forms the city's southern and eastern boundary, is the western end of the Okeechobee Waterway across the peninsula; Matlacha Pass and Pine Island lie to the west. The whole city is low and exposed — storm surge from the Gulf, not rainfall, is the flooding risk that matters here.
Cities near Cape Coral
The other Gulf and south Florida cities are Tampa, St. Petersburg, Miami, Hialeah and Port St. Lucie. The Gulf coast page follows the shoreline they share.