Cape Coral City Map Poster

About Cape Coral

The city's population was estimated to have increased by more than 10,000 residents between 2009 and 2012. The Cape Coral-Fort Myers metropolitan area is the second-largest in Southwest Florida after the Tampa Bay Area, with a population of over 800,000 as of 2015 estimates. Cape Coral was founded in 1957 as "Canaveral" by Leonard S. Kaye (1915–2002), who built its first home on Coronado Beach Drive for his family and friends from New York City; he named it after Cape Canaveral which had been established earlier that year near Cocoa Beach at what would become Kennedy Space Center. In 1960 it became known as "Cape Coral", when Kaye sold lots south of Canal Point to developers for construction of a planned community there called Del Prado Isles; this new development extended from Tarpon Bay Road southward past Fort Myers Shores into present-day North Fort Myers along San Carlos Boulevard (formerly Gulfview Boulevard).