It is a suburb of Miami and located 16 miles (26 km) north of Downtown Miami with city boundaries that stretch from I-95 and Northeast 2nd Avenue to its east to Northwest 47th and Northwest 57th Avenues to its west, and from the Broward County line to its north to 151st Street to its south.

[4] The city's name originated from Florida State Road 860, a major roadway through the area also known as Miami Gardens Drive.

In the wake of the construction of I-95 in the late 1960s, many middle- and upper-income African American and West Indian American families migrated from Miami neighborhoods like Liberty City to what became Miami Gardens (also called Carol City, Norland, or Norwood) as race-based covenants were outlawed with the Fair Housing Act, and mostly lower income blacks moved into the Liberty City and Little Haiti neighborhoods surrounding Liberty Square and Edison Courts.

[6] In 2012, Oliver Gilbert, only the second mayor the city has had, proposed forming a community redevelopment agency (CRA).

[7] During the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Hard Rock Stadium will host multiple matches during the tournament.

The Miami Gardens Police Department is the lead law enforcement agency for the 110,000 residents living within the city's 20 square miles (52 km2).

The department operates under a unified command structure with its headquarters located at 1020 NW 163 Drive, Miami Gardens, Florida 33169.

[23] In 2013, law enforcement abuses were alleged regarding the Miami Gardens Police Department by several news outlets.

According to the Miami Herald's Julie K. Brown: "The videos show, among other things, cops stopping citizens, questioning them, aggressively searching them and arresting them for trespassing when they have permission to be on the premises".

The guilty plea would validate the officers' improper arrest and increment their quota, so he became a continuous target.

It was reported that, between 2008 and 2013, 99,980 stops occurred in Miami Gardens, involving 56,922 people, over half of the city's population.

[28] Civil rights lawsuits have been filed against the Miami Gardens Police Department by the store owner and others who were illegally detained and/or arrested.

Norland Middle School, in the Miami Gardens area, has a magnet program in dance, music, theatre and art, which began in 1985.

The young actors Alex R. Hibbert and Jaden Piner, who starred in the Oscar-winning film Moonlight, were trained at this school.