Orlando

It's urban and rural, wealthy and middle-class, bustling and laid-back, traditional and edgy, conservative and liberal, sophisticated and naïve.
But for all its contradictions, the Central Florida communities known collectively as Orlando are unmistakably family-friendly and unabashedly welcoming to newcomers.

Despite its outsized international profile, Orlando proper is, in fact, a medium-sized municipality of fewer than 200,000 people. The Orlando Metropolitan Statistical Area, however, encompasses 1.7 million people throughout Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Lake counties. Like the region's best-known city, the dozens of communities encompassing the metro area boast charms all their own.