Museums—Orlando Museum of Art; The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art; the Orange County Regional History Center and Heritage Square; and The Mennello Museum of American Folk Art.

Memorable Meals—Tamari-roasted duck breast at Hue-A Restaurant downtown; miso-marinated Chilean sea bass at Manuel's on the 28th; a low-calorie roasted vegetable platter at Seasons 52 on Sand Lake Road's touristy Restaurant Row; an aged filet mignon at Capriccio Grill in the Peabody Orlando.

Late Night—Universal's CityWalk; the Pointe Orlando entertainment and shopping complex near International Drive; martini, rooftop and piano bars in Downtown Orlando; lively shopping, dining and entertainment complexes found in Winter Park and Winter Park Village; Old Town in Kissimmee.

Walks—Taking a leisurely walk (about 1 m/1.6 km) around Lake Eola Park; strolling the upscale shops along Park Avenue Shopping Area in Winter Park; meandering amid the camellias at Harry P. Leu Gardens; the little-known nature trail at Nature Conservancy's Disney Wilderness Preserve at Poinciana.

Especially for Kids—SeaWorld Orlando; Universal Orlando Resort; Disney's Magic Kingdom and Disney's Animal Kingdom in Walt Disney World Resort; Wet 'n Wild; Gatorland; the Orlando Science Center.

Seminole County to the north is composed of bedroom communities such as Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, Longwood, Lake Mary, Winter Springs, historic Eatonville and Winter Park, where you'll find lots of shopping and sightseeing. Hotels, motels and an array of dining opportunities are offered throughout suburban Seminole County.

To the west of downtown, Lake County boasts more than 1,000 lakes (including part of the Butler chain) and more of the wall-to-wall residential and commercial development that is consuming central Florida. To the north is the 450,000-acre/180,000-hectare Ocala National Forest.

Orlando's location in the middle of the state places it within easy driving distance of the Tampa/St. Petersburg area along the Gulf of Mexico, as well as Daytona Beach, Cape Canaveral and St. Augustine to the east.

In 1857, the city's name was changed to Orlando. The most widely accepted of at least four stories behind the name credits soldier Orlando Reeves, who was killed by Seminole Indians while serving sentinel duty at what is now his place of burial and a downtown centerpiece: Lake Eola Park.

Many Orlando pioneers earned a living in cattle ranching and supplied beef to soldiers during the Civil War. Travel to the swampy wilds of central Florida was difficult until the early 1880s, when Henry Plant's Atlantic Coastline Railroad provided access to the region. It also gave rise to the area's citrus industry, as the fruit could be exported north via refrigerated railroad cars.

One of the area's earliest settlers was Elias Disney, a Canadian who tried his luck as a hotelier and a farmer. He failed at both pursuits and moved to Chicago in 1889. In 1936, Dick Pope opened a central Florida theme park known as Cypress Gardens and became known as the state's "Father of Tourism." But Cypress Gardens would never approach the magnitude of a park Elias's son, Walt, eventually brought to the area. Some three decades after Cypress Gardens opened, Walt Disney purchased more than 43 sq mi/111 sq km of Orlando's pristine land for his Magic Kingdom.

Walt Disney died of lung cancer five years before Walt Disney World's 1971 opening. His brother Roy saw to the park's completion and named it in honor of him. The grand plan included more than the Magic Kingdom amusement park, which opened as phase one of the project with its hotels, campgrounds, golf courses and restaurants. Walt Disney had also envisioned building an air-conditioned futuristic community named Epcot (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow). It finally premiered in 1982 but was more of a theme park than Disney may have originally intended.

Large-scale attractions, amusement parks, and film and television production complexes continue to dominate Orlando, but the region is also gaining recognition as a high-tech center, as well as a world-class meeting destination. Convention centers abound and include the Orange County Convention Center, which offers more than 2 million sq ft/185,000 sq m of space, making it the third-largest facility of its type in the nation.

Hungry guests at Walt Disney World Resort consume more than 9.7 million burgers, 7.7 million hot dogs and almost 9.3 million lbs/4 million kg of French fries every year. That's enough fries to circle the world more than three times, equivalent to more than 8.5 million lbs/3.8 million kg of spuds.

An entire chapel, designed for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, was transported from New York City, restored, and installed in The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park, just north of Orlando.

Ships with drafts as deep as 8 ft/2.5 m can navigate the St. Johns River from the Atlantic Ocean deep into Florida's belly at Sanford. Because the river flows south to north, old-time river travelers in the Orlando area say they are sailing "down" to Jacksonville.

Orlando has 176 golf courses offering more than 668 mi/1,075 km of walking (or carting) from hole to hole.

The gestation period of a killer whale is approximately 17 months—the longest known of all cetaceans. SeaWorld Orlando's Shamu was the first killer whale successfully born and raised in a zoological environment. Since then, SeaWorld Orlando has been blessed with the birth of 13 killer whales. The most recent, named Trua (Icelandic for "believe"), was born on Thanksgiving in 2005.

The oldest, largest bald cypress tree in the world is found in Seminole County north of Orlando. Called The Senator, it stands more than 138 ft/42 m high and has a girth of 17.5 ft/5.3 m.

Famous residents of Orlando include TV star Delta Burke, movie star Wesley Snipes, basketball star Shaquille O'Neal and golf great Tiger Woods.