GEOGRAPHY AND ECONOMY OF TAMPA BAY AND SARASOTA BAY 1 
Peter A. Clark and Richard W. MacAuley 
Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council 
St. Petersburg, Florida 
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 
Tampa and Sarasota Bays are located on the west central coast of 
peninsular Florida (Figure 1). Tampa Bay was formed as a drowned river 
valley during the melting of the last major ice age of the Pleistocene 
Epoch. During that same time period, Sarasota and Palma Sola Bays were 
formed as lagoons behind a chain of barrier islands. 
During the Great Ice Age, the rise and fall of sea level created 
six terraces and historic shorelines in the Tampa Bay Region. The 
terraces and shorelines form belts and occur in step-like formation 
typically running parallel to and rising inland from the coastline. 
Tampa Bay is the largest open water estuary in the state of 
Florida. The estuary is roughly a y-shaped system 35 miles in length and 
10 miles wide. The geographic subdivisions of the bay are represented on 
Figure 2. Combining the open water measurements and intertidal wetland 
areas provides the summary of area measurements for Tampa Bay; these are 
reported on Table 1. In addition, shoreline length measurements for 
Tampa Bay are included on Table 2. 
Table 1. Summary of areal measurements for subdivisions of Tampa Bay, 
including emergent wetlands (Lewis and Whitman 1985). 
Subdivision Name 
mi^ 
km ^ 
Acres 
Hectares 
1. Old Tampa Bay 
80.5 
200.7 
51,542.0 
20,067.2 
2. Hillsborough Bay 
40.2 
105.3 
26,119.6 
10,534.3 
3. Middle Tampa Bay 
119.7 
309.9 
76,547.1 
30,990.7 
4. Lower Tampa Bay 
95.2 
246.6 
60,906.5 
24,658.4 
5. Boca Ciega Bay 
35.9 
93.1 
22,985.6 
9,305.9 
6. Terra Ceia Bay 
8.0 
20.6 
5,098.3 
2,064.0 
7. Manatee River 
18.6 
54.6 
11.935.1 
5,462.0 
TOTAL: 
398.1 
1,030.8 
256,164.9 
103,082.5 
Presented in 1987 by Julia E. Greene, Executive Director, TBRPC. 
1 
