This image of the Florida peninsula was taken by astronauts on the International Space Station in October 2014.
The Florida peninsula is easily recognizable from space, even at night, in this image taken from the International Space Station in October 2014. Gauging the size and intensity of lights at night gives an intuitive sense of city size and population.
The brightest area in this image is the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metropolitan area, the largest urban area in the southeastern United States and home to 5.6 million people. A nearly straight line of cities runs nearly 560 kilometers (350 miles) along the Atlantic coast from Jacksonville, Fla., to Wilmington, N.C.
At the center and southern portions of the peninsula, the almost population-free Everglades wetland is visible given it's nearly as dark as the surrounding Atlantic Ocean. The small cluster of lights far offshore is Freeport on Grand Bahama Island. The faint blue areas throughout the image are clouds lit by moonlight.
