The geography is a postcard in plan view: the mainland on its bluff above Clearwater Harbor, the Memorial Causeway arcing west to Clearwater Beach — three miles of white quartz sand on its own barrier island — Sand Key stretching south, the Intracoastal Waterway threading between, Old Tampa Bay at the city’s back, and beneath it all the freshwater springs that named the place.
What’s with the Clear Water? Clearwater was named for water. Really. On a salty coast, fresh water is the whole game — and along the bluff above the harbor, clear freshwater springs flowed straight out of the ground and down to the bay. The Tocobaga people drank from them for centuries before a European ever saw the place; the American settlers who came later named their landing “Clear Water Harbor” for the same springs. Add three miles of sugar-white barrier-island sand and one of the sunniest coasts in America, and the name turned out to be the whole brand: clear water, bright sky, and a beach that keeps landing at the top of the national rankings.
Why People Visit Clearwater Florida
Clearwater offers three miles of white-sand barrier-island beach repeatedly ranked among America's top beaches, one of the sunniest coasts in the country, the 1947 origin point of the Optimist Pram class sailboat that taught most of the world's Olympic sailors how to sail, and one of the longest spring-training affiliations in Major League Baseball running since the same year. The freshwater springs that gave the place its name still feed the harbor; the Tocobaga lived here for centuries before contact; the Pinellas Peninsula is one of the densest concentrations of small Gulf coast communities in Florida. Visitors come for the beach, the pier, the springs, the boat heritage, the spring training, the sunsets, the snowbird-season rhythm, and the simple Gulf Coast pleasure of three miles of sand under the brightest sky in the country. On the Gulf since 1915.
