Brevard County - The Big Picture

Welcome to Brevard County, Florida, home to some 532,000 people. You will also hear it called Florida’s Space Coast. But it doesn’t matter what you call it– it's a great place to visit.

This map is courtesy of Florida's Space Coast Office of Tourism. Click to enlarge it. Brevard County is 72 miles long, and we typically describe things as being in North Brevard, Central Brevard, or South Brevard, as well as beachside, mainland, or island. Starting at the north and traveling down U. S. 1, you'll find Scottsmoore, Mims, Titusville, and Port St. John, all mainland towns that border the Indian River. The northern part of Merritt Island and the beachside part of North Brevard encompass the Kennedy Space Center.

Central Brevard consists of Cocoa and Rockledge on the mainland, the town of Merritt Island, and the beachside towns of Cape Canaveral, Cocoa Beach, and Patrick Air Force Base. Notice that Merritt Island has the Indian River on the west side and the Banana River on the east side; these two rivers merge at the tip of Merritt Island and are then referred to collectively as the Indian River. The whole system comprises a lagoon.

South Brevard consists of Viera, Suntree, Palm Shores, Melbourne, Palm Bay, Malabar, Valkaria, Grant, Micco, and Sebastian on the mainland side. Beachside, you'll find Satellite Beach, Indialantic, Melbourne Beach, Melbourne Shores, and Sebastian Inlet.

The bridges connecting the mainland, island, and beach towns are referred to as causeways - the 528 (or Beachline) Causeway at the north end of Cocoa, the 520 (or Bennett) Causeway at the south end of Cocoa, the Pineda Causeway between Rockledge and Melbourne, the Eau Gallie Causeway in mid-Melbourne, and the Melbourne Causeway between Melbourne and Palm Bay. After the Melbourne Causeway, there is not another access to the beach from US #1 until County Road 510 on the north end of Vero Beach.

North/south routes are I-95 and U.S. #1 on the mainland, A1A beachside, and Wickham Road and Babcock in South Brevard. East/west routes are Highway 46 in Mims, Highway 50 in Titusville, 528 (also known as the Beachline) and 520 in Central Brevard, and Eau Gallie Boulevard, 192, Palm Bay Road, and Malabar Road in South Brevard.

The Just the Facts section of the field trips described in this blog will give you a "big picture" location - for example, the Enchanted Forest big picture location is North Brevard, mainland, Titusville. The location information is also included in the labels at the very end of each post, and you can click on a label to display related posts.