Jacksonville is the largest city by population in the U.S. state of Florida, the 12th most populous city in the United States and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States.

It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968. Consolidation gave Jacksonville its great size and placed most of its metropolitan population within the city limits; with an estimated population of 868,031 in 2015, it is the most populous city proper in Florida[9] and the Southeast.

Jacksonville is the principal city in the Jacksonville metropolitan area, with a population of 1,573,606 in 2015, the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Florida, after Miami, Tampa and Orlando.