The earliest instance of the name "Tampa", in the form "Tanpa", appears in the memoirs of Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, who spent 17 years as a captive of the Calusa and traveled through much of peninsular Florida.

[21] In 2014, local authorities consulted by Michael Kruse of the Tampa Bay Times suggest that "Tampan" was historically more common, while "Tampanian" became popular when the former term came to be seen as a potential insult.

[22] A mix of Cuban, Italian, and Spanish immigrants began arriving in the late 1800s to found and work in the new communities of Ybor City and West Tampa.

[25] Early Spanish explorers interacted most extensively with the Tocobaga, whose principal town was at the northern end of Old Tampa Bay near today's Safety Harbor in Pinellas County.

They destroyed much of the fort's facilities and confiscated the remaining military supplies other than the cannons, which they tossed into the Hillsborough River, then left the "desolate" town after two days.

After his death in 1954 from cancer, control passed to his son, Santo Trafficante Jr., who established alliances with families in New York City and extended his power throughout Florida and into Batista-era Cuba.

[52][53] The era of rampant and open corruption ended in the 1950s, when Estes Kefauver's traveling organized crime hearings came to town and were followed by the sensational misconduct trials of several local officials.

Well-known neighborhoods include Ybor City, Forest Hills, Ballast Point, Sulphur Springs, Seminole Heights, Tampa Heights, Palma Ceia, Hyde Park, Davis Islands, Harbour Island, Tampa Palms, College Hill, Water Street, Channelside and non-residential areas of Gary and the Westshore Business District.

[80][81] All of these storms veered to the east or northeast before reaching Tampa Bay and instead made landfall down the coast, resulting in serious damage in southwest Florida.

It made landfall near Marco Island on September 10, 2017, and moved due north, passing through eastern Hillsborough County as a Category 1 storm and causing widespread issues in the area, particularly disrupting the electrical grid for several days.

[82] Because of tremendous population growth and coastal development in the century since the last hurricane landfall, combined with rising sea levels due to climate change, the Tampa Bay Area is considered one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to a direct hit from a major storm.

Afternoon thundershowers occasionally intensify into a severe thunderstorm, bringing heavy downpours, frequent lightning, strong straight-line winds, and sometimes hail.

Occasional cold fronts push through the area during the season, usually bringing a brief period of rain followed by daytime highs in the 50s °F (10–13 °C) and nighttime lows near 40 °F (4 °C) for a day or two.

Hard freezes, defined as a temperature of 28 °F (−2.2 °C) or below for several hours, occur rarely in the Tampa area, every five to twenty years depending on the exact location.

Occasionally, a late-season cold front pushes through the area, potentially bringing a brief round of severe weather followed by a few days of unseasonably cool temperatures.

[105] Communities of faith have organized in Tampa from 1846, when a Methodist congregation established the city's first church,[106] to 1939, when a 21-year-old Billy Graham began his career as a spiritual evangelist and preacher on downtown's Franklin Street,[107] and through to today.

Among Tampa's noteworthy religious structures are Sacred Heart Catholic Church, a 1905 downtown landmark noted for its soaring, Romanesque revival construction in granite and marble with German-crafted stained glass windows,[108] the distinctive rock and mortar St. James Episcopal House of Prayer, listed with the National Register of Historic Places,[109] and the St. Paul AME church, which has seen the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.[107] and President Bill Clinton speak from its pulpit.

[121] Finance, retail, healthcare, insurance, shipping by air and sea, national defense, professional sports, tourism, and real estate all play vital roles in the area's economy.

Several Fortune 1000 companies are headquartered in the metropolitan area,[125] including Bloomin' Brands, WellCare, Jabil, TECO Energy, and Raymond James Financial.

Current popular nightlife districts include Channelside, Ybor City, SoHo, International Plaza and Bay Street, and Seminole Hard Rock.

[143] It is home to about 80 lions, tigers, bobcats, cougars and other species, most of whom have been abandoned, abused, orphaned, saved from being turned into fur coats, or retired from performing acts.

Often referred to as Tampa's "Mardi Gras", the invasion flotilla led by the pirate ship, Jose Gasparilla, and subsequent parade draw over 400,000 attendees, contributing tens of millions of dollars to the city's economy.

[168] The hiring of Tony Dungy in 1996 started an improving trend that eventually led to the team's victory in Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003 under coach Jon Gruden.

The Tampa Bay area has long been home to nationally competitive amateur baseball and has hosted spring training and minor league teams for over a century.

Then the Lightning won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2020 and 2021 with victories over the Dallas Stars and fellow Atlantic Division member Montreal Canadiens respectively.

Print news coverage is also provided by a variety of smaller regional newspapers, alternative weeklies, and magazines, including the Florida Sentinel Bulletin, Creative Loafing, Reax Music Magazine, The Oracle, Tampa Bay Business Journal, MacDill Thunderbolt, and La Gaceta, which notable for being the nation's only trilingual newspaper—English, Spanish, and Italian, owing to its roots in the cigar-making immigrant neighborhood of Ybor City.

The Veterans Expressway (SR 589), meanwhile connects Tampa International Airport and the bay bridges to the northwestern suburbs of Carrollwood, Northdale, Westchase, Citrus Park, Cheval, and Lutz, before continuing north as the Suncoast Parkway into Pasco and Hernando counties.

[217] Union Station also serves as the transfer hub for Amtrak Thruway service, offering bus connections to several cities in southwest Florida and to Orlando.

The HART bus system's main hub is the Marion Transit Center in Downtown Tampa, serving nearly 30 local and express routes.

[240] Tampa's government has implemented incentives and programs to promote and achieve sustainability, including: expedited building permits for projects seeking LEED certification, increasing water conservation and resiliency through the SWFWMD Water-Wise collaboration, developing a climate equity plan, providing sustainability training to city employees, and increasing coordination for disaster response.