Many residents of Hialeah seem puzzled by their city's nickname, and some have questioned its accuracy, suggesting that perhaps it is more of an ambition than a state of being. In Liz Balmaseda's novel Sweet Mary, she writes: "Whatever municipal poet nicknamed Hialeah the 'City of Progress' should have informed the Guevaras--they missed the bulletin. They live in no such place. Their city is defined not by progress, but by a plague of inertia."

The city is situated on a large prairie between Biscayne Bay and the Everglades, and its name is usually attributed to Muskogee origin, with "Haiyakpo" (prairie) and "hili" (pretty) combining in "Hialeah" to mean "pretty prairie".

Originally opened in 1922, the Hialeah Park Race Track is one of the oldest existing recreational facilities in southern Florida. During its heyday, it was known as "The World's Most Beautiful Horse Race Course" and holds the distinction of being an Audubon Bird Sanctuary. Once each racing day, the resident flock of flamingos would take flight around the facility, before returning to the infield lake, and the track hosted the appropriately named Flamingo Stakes. On March 5, 1979, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

The city is notable for its high Hispanic proportion, which at 94% is the second-highest of any city in the United States outside of Puerto Rico.

96.3% of residents report speaking Spanish at home, making the language an integral part of daily life in the city.

Starting after the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and continuing through the Freedom Flights from 1965 to 1973, the Mariel boatlift in 1980, and the Balseros or boat people of the late 1990s, several waves of Cuban exiles have come to Hialeah. Today, Cuban American residents make up 73.37% of the city's population, which goes a long way to explaining all those Spanish speaking households.

Amelia Earhart is probably the most famous missing person in history, and she said her final goodbyes from Hialeah in 1937 as she left on her ill-fated attempt to circumnavigate the globe. The Amelia Earhart Park in Hialeah is named in her honor.

Hialeah is the tenth-largest city in the United States among cities with a population density of more than 10,000 people per square mile. It is also the densest American city in terms of population not to feature a skyscraper.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 81.8% of Hialeah households have a computer, but only 71% have broadband Internet.

The ghost of a young girl is said to haunt the girls' bathroom at Hialeah High School. According to local lore, she was murdered on campus, but no records have been found to support this claim. Not to be outdone, rival Miami Lakes High School has two areas of ghostly activity--the theater, where a playful ghost turns lights on and off, and the fourth floor, where a student once fell to her death through a skylight.