It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Biscayne Bay to the west, Sands Key (across Sands Cut) to the north, and Old Rhodes Key (across Caesar Creek) to the south.

Elliott Key has a National Park Service campground, but is otherwise uninhabited.

The chief pirate of legend is Black Caesar, who is said to have escaped from a slave ship, and used Elliott Key as his base.

With the establishment of the Biscayne National Monument in 1968 and purchase of private property in the park by the Federal government, development of the highway and of Elliott Key was halted, and the money that was allocated for the proposed causeway was used to build a replacement Card Sound Bridge connecting northern Key Largo to the mainland.

[9] On August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew made landfall on Elliott Key.