Restoration of the Everglades begins in the vicinity of Orlando. The Okeechobee River drains into Lake Okeechobee, a lake with an average depth of . During the wet season when the lake exceeds its capacity, the water leaves the lake in a very wide and shallow river, approximately long and wide. This wide and shallow flow is known as "sheetflow". The land gradually slopes toward Florida Bay, the historical destination of most of the water leaving the Everglades. Before drainage attempts, the Everglades comprised , taking up a third of the Florida peninsula. Since the early 19th century the Everglades have been a subject
Lake Okeechobee one point near the center of the lake. The name "Okeechobee" comes from the Hitchiti words "oki" (water) and "chubi" (big). Mayaimi, meaning "big water," is the oldest known name, as reported in the 16th century, by Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda. Slightly later in the 16th century René Goulaine de Laudonnière reported hearing about a large freshwater lake in southern Florida called "Serrope". By the 18th century the largely mythical lake was known to British mapmakers and chroniclers by the Spanish name "Laguna de Espiritu Santo." In the early 19th century it was known as "Mayacco Lake" or "Lake Mayaca"