Jacksonville, FL

Jacksonville’s city limits reach from an inland river city to Atlantic salt marshes and beaches. That scale largely comes from the 1968 consolidation of Jacksonville and Duval County; Baldwin and the three beach municipalities kept separate governments. The consolidated city now covers 747.3 square miles of land on both sides of the St. Johns River. Near the river’s mouth, the 46,000-acre Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve protects one of the Southeast coast’s largest remaining salt-marsh estuaries. Over 200 archaeological sites record roughly 6,000 years of human habitation, including the history of the Timucua and other Indigenous peoples. The preserve also contains Fort Caroline National Memorial and Kingsley Plantation, where surviving structures and tabby cabins document Spanish Florida’s plantation system and the lives of enslaved people.

ATTRMathew105601 / CC BY-SA 4.0

The St. Johns remains a working corridor as it approaches the ocean. JAXPORT operates three cargo terminals and two intermodal rail yards along the river. Across Blount Island, Dames Point, and Talleyrand, the terminals move containers, vehicles, food, and heavy equipment. On-dock rail connects port traffic with CSX and Norfolk Southern. Near the river mouth, Naval Station Mayport combines a harbor and airfield and serves as one of three major Navy installations in the Jacksonville area. Downtown’s eastern edge retains another working waterfront for ship repair, lumber, concrete, and oil businesses. Port cranes, naval ships, freight trains, warehouses, and downtown offices occupy different stretches of the same river. Closer to the center, the river divides downtown into Northbank and Southbank districts joined by bridges, riverwalks, and water-taxi stops.

ATTRMathew105601 / CC BY-SA 3.0

City Center on the Northbank contains government offices, office towers, the Florida Theatre, MOCA Jacksonville, and the Jacksonville Center for the Performing Arts. The Southbank combines residential and office towers with several major medical campuses. In May 2026, Jacksonville reopened a rebuilt Northbank Riverwalk section from the Riverside Arts Market to the Hyatt and opened the Riverfront Music Garden beside the performing-arts center. The garden’s installations and Walk of Fame trace the city’s music history through performers and composers from several eras. Upriver, Riverside’s weekly arts market fills Artists’ Square beneath the Fuller Warren Bridge with 100-plus makers, farmers, bakers, and food vendors, accompanied by live performances every Saturday. The city’s outer reaches make the river part of practical transportation and public recreation.

ATTRLoneStarMike / CC BY-SA 3.0

At Mayport Village, the St. Johns River Ferry carries cars, bicycles, and pedestrians across 0.9 mile of water to Fort George Island, linking the two ends of State Road A1A. As of 2026, it departed each shore every half hour and made the crossing in roughly five minutes. The landing on Fort George Island leads toward Kingsley Plantation, coastal parks, and the wetlands of the Timucuan Preserve. The preserve’s beaches, boat launches, and walking and bicycling trails offer public access to the same estuary protected for its ecology and history. The five-minute crossing makes the ferry both a piece of the A1A transportation network and a practical gateway from Mayport to Fort George Island’s archaeological sites, plantation history, salt marsh, and shoreline.