Jacksonville: the largest city in the continental United States

The St. Johns River, which flows through Jacksonville for more than forty kilometers, remains one of the few major American rivers to flow from south to north.

A few minutes away, the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, overlooking the river, displays art collections in botanical gardens curated in Italian and English styles.

Continuing toward the Atlantic coast, one reaches Jacksonville's beaches, among the most extensive in northern Florida.

Toward evening, the Riverside neighborhood animates with restaurants in restored Victorian houses along the St. Johns River, among the city's best-preserved historic neighborhoods.

Jacksonville, following its administrative merger with the entire Duval County in nineteen sixty-eight, became the city with the largest territorial extent in the continental United States, even surpassing Los Angeles in total surface area.

The St. Johns River, which unusually flows from south to north for over five hundred kilometers, remains among the few major American rivers to reverse the typical direction of the more well-known North American waterways.