[6] The surrounding area offers many opportunities for outdoor recreation; these include fishing, sailing, motorboating, golfing, and hiking.

Visitors participate in water sports of all kinds, including swimming, scuba diving, kitesurfing, and surfing.

In July 2009, New Smyrna Beach was ranked number nine on the list of "best surf towns" in Surfer.

"[10] New Smyrna Beach's motto is cygnus inter anates, which is Latin for "a swan among ducks.

The area was first settled by Europeans in 1768, when Scottish physician Dr. Andrew Turnbull, a friend of James Grant, the governor of British East Florida, established the colony of New Smyrna.

Dr. Turnbull had married Gracia Dura Bin (some sources give her name as Maria Gracia Rubini),[12] the daughter of a Greek London merchant from the Ottoman city of Smyrna (modern-day İzmir in Turkey) and named the settlement in honor of his wife's birthplace,[13] and the homeland of some of those in his future labor force who were Greek from the Mani peninsula.

[16] Turnbull recruited about 1,300 settlers, intending for them to grow hemp, sugarcane, and indigo, as well as to produce rum, at his plantation on the northeastern Atlantic coast of Florida.

The majority of the colonists came from Menorca (historically called "Minorca" in English), one of the Mediterranean Balearic Islands of Spain,[17] and were of Catalan culture and language.

Although the colony produced relatively large amounts of processed indigo in its first few years of operation,[19] it eventually collapsed after suffering major losses due to insect-borne diseases and Indian raids, and growing tensions caused by mistreatment of the colonists on the part of Turnbull and his overseers.

[20] The survivors, about 600 in number, marched nearly 70 miles north on the King's Road and relocated to St. Augustine,[21] where their descendants live to this day.

[22] In 1783, East and West Florida were returned to the Spanish, and Turnbull abandoned his colony to retire in Charleston, South Carolina.

[26][27] Central Florida remained sparsely populated by white settlers well into the 19th century, and it was frequently raided by Seminole Indians trying to protect their territory.

During the Civil War, on March 23, 1862, portions of the 3rd Florida Infantry Regiment defeated a small U.S. naval force that was attempting to land near New Smyrna.

In 1892, Henry Flagler provided service to the town via his Florida East Coast Railway.

New Smyrna averages only about two freezes per year, and many species of subtropical plants and palms are grown in the area.

The summers are long and hot, with frequent severe thunderstorms in the afternoon, as central Florida is the lightning capital of North America.

[citation needed] Hurricane Charley exited over New Smyrna Beach on August 13, 2004, after crossing the state in a northeastern direction from its initial landfall in Punta Gorda.