Southwest Florida Southwest Florida Southwest Florida is the region along the southwest Gulf coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The area is known for its sugar white sand beaches, lush tropical landscape, and winter resort economy. Definitions of the region vary, though its boundaries are generally considered to put it south of the Tampa Bay area, west of Lake Okeechobee, and mostly north of the Everglades and to include Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, and Collier counties. For some purposes, the inland counties of DeSoto, Glades, and Hendry, and the thinly populated mainland section of Monroe County, south of Collier, are also
South Central Florida Express, Inc. at Marcy and interchanges with the Florida East Coast Railway at Fort Pierce, with haulage rights to CSX and Norfolk Southern at Jacksonville, Florida. The of track on the west side of Lake Okeechobee between Sebring and Lake Harbor was previously a CSX line (Sebring Subdivision along the mainline to the sugar fields, and Okeelanta Subdivision on the spur to Lake Harbor). The northernmost 42 miles of the west side between Sebring and Harrisburg (just south of Palmdale) was built in 1916 by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad as part of an effort to extend their Haines City Branch south