Jacksonville is the largest
city in the U.S. state of Florida by population and the largest city by area in
the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which
the city government consolidated in 1968. Consolidation gave Jacksonville its
great size and placed most of its metropolitan population within the city
limits; with an estimated population in 2012 of 836,507, it is the most
populous city proper in Florida and the Southeast, and the 12th most populous
in the United States. Jacksonville is the principal city in the Jacksonville
