The Florida Panhandle (also West Florida and Northwest Florida) is the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Florida; it is a salient roughly long and wide, lying between Alabama on the north and the west, Georgia on the north, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Its eastern boundary is arbitrarily defined. In terms of population, major communities include Tallahassee, Pensacola, and Panama City. As is the case with the other eight U.S. states that have panhandles, the geographic meaning of the term is inexact and elastic. References to the Florida Panhandle always include the ten counties west of the Apalachicola River, a natural geographic boundary, which was the historic dividing line between the British colonies of West Florida and East Florida. These western counties also lie in the Central Time Zone (with the exception of Gulf County, which is divided between the Eastern and Central Time zones), while the rest of the state is in the Eastern Time Zone. References to the Panhandle may also include some or all of eleven counties immediately east of the Apalachicola known as the Big Bend region, along the curve of Apalachee Bay. Like the rest of North Florida, including North Central Florida, the Panhandle is more similar in culture and climate to the Deep South than the rest of the state, particularly to Central Florida and South Florida in the lower peninsula, being known for its conservative politics and "piney woods." The largest city in the Panhandle is Tallahassee, the state capital, population 196,169 (2020). However, the largest population grouping is the Pensacola Metropolitan Area with a population of 511,502 (2020), which includes the second and third largest communities in the region, Pensacola and Navarre. The total population of the Panhandle, as of the 2010 Census, was 1,407,925, just under 7.5% of Florida's total population as recorded in the same census. At roughly 70 persons per square mile, its population density is less than one fifth of Florida's as a whole. Coastal regions Emerald Coast Emerald Coast, a term coined in 1983, refers in general to the beaches and coastal resorts from Pensacola to Port St. Joe, but is sometimes used to refer, by extension, to the Panhandle as a whole, especially west of the Apalachicola. Earlier designations include "Playground of the Gulfcoast" and the "Miracle Strip", especially for the area between Fort Walton Beach and Panama City. Coastal regions