In the 16th century, the region was inhabited by the Mocama, a coastal subgroup of the Timucua people. At the time of contact with Europeans, Mocama villages were part of the powerful chiefdom known as the Saturiwa, centered around the mouth of the St. Johns River. One early French map shows a village called Ossachite at the site of what is now downtown Jacksonville, and this may be the earliest recorded name for the area.

According to the United States Census Bureau, Jacksonville has a total area of 874.3 square miles (2,264 km²), making it the largest city in land area in the contiguous United States. 86.66% (757.7 sq mi or 1,962 km²) of this total area is land and 13.34% (116.7 sq mi or 302 km²) is water.

After Spain ceded the Florida Territory to the United States in 1821, American settlers decided to plan a town near the St. Johns River. They named the town Jacksonville, after the first military governor of the Florida Territory (later U.S. President) Andrew Jackson.

Although residents have sometimes been called Jacksonvillians, the Florida Times-Union wrote in 2000 that Jaxson is the preferred term among locals, calling the moniker Jacksonvillian "grammatically gauche."

In 1953, a restaurant called Insta-Burger opened at 7146 Beach Boulevard. It had a special oven called the Insta-Broiler that could cook 400 patties an hour, but despite its supercharged output, business dwindled until new owners brought the restaurant and renamed it Burger King.

The St. Johns River was important in the Union effort to take Florida. If Federals controlled the river, they could raid Confederate positions in the interior of the state and use the river as a barrier for control of the east. The Battle of St. John's Bluff was fought from October 1-3, 1862, and resulted in a significant Union victory, ending the Confederate threat that had prevented Federals from seizing the river and the city.

Remarkably, Jacksonville has only had one direct hit from a hurricane since 1871. However, the city has experienced hurricane or near-hurricane conditions more than a dozen times due to storms crossing the state from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean, or passing to the north or south in the Atlantic and brushing past the area.

1701 West 16th Street is the shell of the Jax Brewing Company, born in 1913 and deceased in 1956 after some battering by Prohibition, a rival Jax Beer, and the arrival of aluminum cans. But despite these obstacles and its current humble appearance, Jax will always be remembered for inventing the six-pack.

The Treaty Oak is an octopus-like Southern live oak estimated to be 250 years old, making it the single oldest living thing in Jacksonville, predating the founding of the city by Isaiah Hart during the 1820s. The name's origin is related to a local story about peace accords between Native Americans and European settlers that were signed under its branches--a story fabricated by local reporter Pat Moran in the 1930s to keep developers from chopping down the tree.

Jacksonville resident George Frandsen is the owner of the largest fossilized poop collection in the world. He is very passionate about his poop and hopes to one day own the largest single piece of fossilized poop in the world. In the meantime, his online museum, the Poozeum, offers everything you might need to know about prehistoric poo.