Broward County, FL

Settlement & growth (pre-1960)

Before European contact, the area now known as Broward County was inhabited by the Tequesta people, a Native American tribe whose settlements dotted the coastline and the banks of the New River. The Tequesta had largely disappeared by the mid-18th century due to disease and conflict with European colonizers. Spanish explorers claimed the region in the 1500s, but no permanent European settlement took hold until the late 19th century. The area remained a sparsely populated frontier of swamps and pine flatwoods, part of the vast Florida Territory acquired by the United States in 1821.

The first significant American settlement began in the 1890s, driven by the arrival of Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway. Flagler’s railroad extended southward, and in 1896 it reached what would become Fort Lauderdale, named after a series of forts built during the Second Seminole War. The railroad opened the region to homesteaders, mostly from the American South and Midwest, who drained land for agriculture—primarily winter vegetables and citrus. The town of Fort Lauderdale was incorporated in 1911, and Broward County was carved out of Dade and Palm Beach counties in 1915. Early settlers were predominantly White Protestants of English, Scots-Irish, and German descent, along with a small number of Black laborers who worked on farms and railroads, settling in segregated neighborhoods like Dania Beach’s historic Black community and the Fourteenth Avenue corridor in Fort Lauderdale.

Growth remained slow through the 1920s land boom and the Great Depression. The real turning point came after World War II. The 1950s and early 1960s saw a massive influx of domestic migrants—veterans and their families, retirees from the Northeast and Midwest, and working-class families seeking jobs in the expanding tourism, construction, and service industries. The development of air conditioning and mosquito control made year-round living feasible. Suburbs exploded: Pompano Beach, Hollywood, and Plantation grew from small towns into sprawling bedroom communities. By 1960, Broward’s population had reached 333,946, still overwhelmingly White and native-born, but the foundation for explosive future growth was laid.

Modern era (post-1965)

The 1965 Hart-Cellar Immigration Act fundamentally reshaped Broward County’s demographics. The first major post-1965 wave was the arrival of Cuban exiles fleeing Fidel Castro’s regime, many settling in Hollywood and Pembroke Pines, which today have large Cuban-American populations. In the 1980s, the Mariel boatlift brought additional Cuban refugees, and political instability in Nicaragua, Colombia, and Venezuela sent waves of Central and South American immigrants to the county. The Hispanic population, negligible in 1960, now stands at 31.9% of the total, with the largest concentrations in Weston, Miramar, and Sunrise.

Simultaneously, the Black population grew dramatically. Broward became a primary destination for the Great Migration’s later stages, with African Americans moving from the rural South to South Florida’s urban centers. The county also saw a surge in Black immigrants from the Caribbean—especially Jamaica, Haiti, and the Bahamas—who settled in Lauderhill, North Lauderdale, and Deerfield Beach. Today, 27.6% of Broward’s population is Black, one of the highest shares of any Florida county. Haitian Creole is widely spoken in neighborhoods around Delray Beach (just north of the county line) and within Broward itself in Pompano Beach.

The post-1965 era also brought smaller but distinct immigrant communities. East/Southeast Asian immigrants—primarily Vietnamese, Filipino, and Chinese—arrived after the Vietnam War and in subsequent decades, settling in Davie and Coral Springs, where they now make up 1.8% of the county’s population. Indian subcontinent immigrants (from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal) also number 1.8%, with growing enclaves in Weston and Parkland. Domestic migration continued unabated: retirees from the Northeast, young professionals from the Rust Belt, and families seeking lower taxes and warmer weather fueled suburban sprawl. The county’s population surged from 620,100 in 1970 to 1.6 million by 2000.

Suburbanization defined the modern era. The county’s character shifted from a collection of beach towns and agricultural hamlets to a vast, interconnected suburban matrix. Coral Springs, incorporated in 1963, became a model master-planned community. Weston, developed in the 1990s, attracted affluent families and immigrants. The county’s college-educated population now stands at 35.8%, reflecting the growth of white-collar employment in healthcare, education, and professional services.