Ocala is known as a city in Marion County Florida

Ocala is a community in Marion County, Florida. As of 2007, the populace documented by the U.S. Census Bureau was 53,491. It's the county seat of Marion County and also the main town of the Ocala, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in fact had a projected 2007 population of 324,857.

Ocala is located near the site of Ocale or Ocali, a major Timucua village and chiefdom throughout the 16th century. The modern city got its name through the historical village, the naming of which is believed to mean "Big Hammock" in the Timucua language. Hernando de Soto passed through Ocale during his famous adventure through what is today the southeastern United States in 1539. Ocale shouldn't be mentioned in any later accounts; it appears to have been abandoned in the wake of de Soto's attack.

In the last century, Ocala increased in prominence as a heart for tourism in Florida. Crucial sights included the Silver Springs Nature Theme Park, Wild Waters waterpark, and also the now-defunct Western-themed Six Gun Territory, all in nearby Silver Springs, Florida. Silver Springs is a 350-acre (1.4 km2) nature amusement park which is all around the headwaters on the Silver River, the most important artesian spring formation in the world.

Ocala began going through rapid development in the 1970s with all the development of the Interstate 75 and also the founding of Disney World, positioned some 70 miles (110 km) southeast.

Within the last decades of the last century, the greater Ocala area experienced one of the greatest development rates in the united states for a city its size. The populace of Marion County in 2000 ended up being over 250,000, up from under 100,000 in 1975. A lot of the county's growth is due to the area's developing reputation as being a retirement location, mostly in just two locations south west and to the south from the city: the SR 200 corridor and The Villages, respectively.

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