Naples, FL » Featured Locations

Naples is a city in Collier County, Florida, United States. As of 1 July 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city's population at 21,653. Naples is a principal city of the Naples–Marco Island Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated total population of 315,839 on 1 July 2007. Although Naples is officially the county seat of Collier County, the courthouse is located east of the city in unincorporated East Naples.

Naples was founded during the late 1880s by former Confederate general and Kentucky U.S. Senator John Stuart Williams and his partner, Louisville businessman Walter N. Haldeman, the publisher of the Louisville Courier-Journal. Throughout the 1870s and '80's, magazine and newspaper stories telling of the area's mild climate and abundant fish and game likened it to the sunny Italian peninsula. The name Naples caught on when promoters described the bay as "surpassing the bay in Naples, Italy."