Miramar

Miramar is a city in Broward County, Florida, southwest of Fort Lauderdale on the eastern edge of the Everglades. Many of its people have roots in Jamaica and other Caribbean islands, and their food and music shape its festivals.

The area was wet prairie and farmland until the 1950s, when developers drained land west of the coastal cities for housing. Miramar was incorporated in 1955, and its name, Spanish for sea view, was chosen though the city lies inland from the ocean. For decades it remained a small suburb of modest homes in the east of its land. Much of western Miramar was later built on land drained from the Everglades by the canals of a federal flood control project. From the 1990s new neighborhoods, offices and parks spread west toward the Everglades, and the city grew into one of the larger suburbs of South Florida.

Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits, a distributor of wine and spirits across the United States, has its head office in Miramar. Arise Virtual Solutions, which runs customer service through home-based agents, is also based in the city, and its agents work from their own homes across the country.

The Miramar Cultural Center, a theater and art gallery beside the town center, holds concerts and plays. Miramar Regional Park has sports fields, a water park and a stadium used for cricket matches. Each year festivals of the city celebrate Jamaican Independence Day and Caribbean heritage with music and food. To the west, the levees and canals of the Everglades mark the edge of the city, with wildlife areas reached by trails.