City of Miami
The seat and largest city, with 442,241 residents in 2020. Downtown, Brickell and PortMiami sit beside neighborhoods people search by name: Little Havana, Wynwood, Edgewater, Overtown, Allapattah and Coconut Grove.
Covering a county of 34 cities and the spaces between them 
5.0 Rating on Google
Miami-Dade County Coverage Map: What to Cover First, What Next and What to Leave for Later
GetPhound is an online marketing company for businesses in Miami-Dade County, and this page does the part of SEO that comes before any writing: deciding which areas of a very large county to cover, in what order. It is a coverage map for owners, not a tourist map.
5.0 Rating on GoogleThe shape of the county
A County of 34 Municipalities, a Large Unincorporated Half and a Bay in the Middle
Miami-Dade County reaches from Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic on the east to the Everglades on the west, and from the Broward line in the north to Florida City and the Keys road in the south. It spans about 2,431 square miles in total, with water making up roughly 22 percent. There are 34 incorporated municipalities, and about half of residents live in unincorporated areas that the county itself serves, including Kendall. Customers in those areas have no city hall and search with names they have used for decades.
For a business, that means the county is not one market. A van leaving Hialeah at rush hour does not reach Homestead in the time it reaches Doral. A shop in Miami Beach has the bay between it and half its potential customers. The right way to market in Miami Dade is to treat the county as groups of nearby areas, then decide how many groups your business can serve well.
- 2,688,237Residents
- 1,900 square milesLand area
- 1,415 per square mileAverage density
- 1,075,278Housing units
- 5.2 percentHomes held for seasonal use
Areas, one by one
Fourteen Areas and What Customers Call Each One
These are the areas we treat as separate markets in a county plan. Resident counts are from the 2020 census as recorded in our place notes.
Hialeah
The second largest city, with 223,109 residents in 2020 and about 94 percent Hispanic, so Spanish pages matter. Several expressways and Metrorail stops make it easy to reach from the north and west of the county.
Kendall and West Kendall
Unincorporated, so there is no city hall to search for: people say Kendall or West Kendall. About 14 miles southwest of downtown, with Dadeland as its business area and 80,241 residents in the Kendall census place in 2020.
Miami Gardens
A city of 111,640 residents in 2020, about 16 miles north of downtown and beside the Broward line. The stadium in Miami Gardens brings event crowds from across the county and beyond.
Miami Beach and the barrier islands
A resort city of 82,890 residents in 2020 on barrier islands, reached by the Venetian, MacArthur, 79th Street and Julia Tuttle causeways. King tides flood low streets, which shapes what customers search for after rain.
Homestead and Florida City
South Dade anchors about 26 miles southwest of Miami. Homestead had 80,737 residents and Florida City 13,085 in 2020. They are the gateway to Biscayne and Everglades national parks and the mainland end of the road to the Keys.
Doral
A planned city of 75,874 residents in 2020, five miles west of the airport, where Venezuelan is the most reported ancestry. Its position between the airport, the Turnpike and the Everglades edge defines how customers reach it.
North Miami
A suburban city of 60,191 residents in 2020 on Biscayne Bay, home to one of the largest Haitian American communities in the country. A university campus and a state park sit beside the bay.
Coral Gables and the central south suburbs
Coral Gables is a planned city with strict zoning and 49,248 residents in 2020, with Miracle Mile and the University of Miami. Pinecrest and South Miami adjoin it to the south and share its search patterns.
Cutler Bay, Palmetto Bay and Perrine
The bayside suburbs of South Dade, about 18 miles southwest of downtown. Voters chose Cutler Bay over Cutler Ridge in 2005, yet many customers still search for Cutler Ridge.
Aventura and Sunny Isles Beach
The northeast corner beside the Broward line: Aventura had 40,242 residents in 2020 and Sunny Isles Beach 22,342 in a high-rise strip along Collins Avenue. The Intracoastal Waterway and Biscayne Boulevard shape routes.
Miami Lakes
A planned town about 15 miles northwest of downtown with 30,467 residents in 2020. Main Street is its center, east of the Palmetto Expressway, with Hialeah to the south and west.
Key Biscayne
An island village of 14,809 residents in 2020 reached by the 4 mile Rickenbacker Causeway, about 3 feet above sea level. A business that serves it must plan for the causeway and for the tide.
Redland and the western Everglades
Unincorporated farm country about 20 miles southwest of downtown, mostly outside the Urban Development Boundary with 5 acre lots. West of the metro, the county reaches into Everglades National Park.
A service order
Four Waves for Covering the County, From the Middle Outward
A business that dispatches from the middle of the county can follow this order. A shop in Homestead or Aventura should invert it and begin at home, then reach outward. The point is to finish one wave before starting the next.
| Wave | Areas | Why they belong together | What to publish |
|---|---|---|---|
| One: the core and the beaches | City of Miami, Miami Beach and the barrier islands, Coral Gables and the central south suburbs, Key Biscayne | Dense, close to the bay and to each other, with the most visitors and the most competitors. | Service pages, Google Business Profile with several service areas, neighborhood names people use, visitor-season content. |
| Two: north and northwest | Hialeah, Miami Lakes, Miami Gardens, North Miami, Aventura and Sunny Isles Beach | One chain of cities reached by I-95, the Palmetto Expressway and Biscayne Boulevard, up to the Broward line. | Area pages, Spanish pages for Hialeah, Haitian American and Caribbean audiences in North Miami and beyond, event-week pages for the stadium area. |
| Three: west and south suburbs | Doral, Kendall and West Kendall, Cutler Bay, Palmetto Bay and Perrine | Large residential markets joined by the Turnpike, SR 874 and US 1, many unincorporated. | Area pages that use the names residents search, home-service content and Maps work for each suburb. |
| Four: South Dade and the edge | Homestead and Florida City, Redland and the western Everglades | Far from the core, with their own roads, farms, parks and the road to the Keys. | Pages for a business that really serves them, with honest travel notes, rather than a block of cities that it never visits. |
A suggested order for a business that can drive anywhere in the county. It is not a ranking of cities.
What near really means
The Roads and Rail Lines That Decide How Areas Connect
Drive time, not distance, is what customers and crews feel. These routes group areas better than a map of city borders does.
| Route | What to know |
|---|---|
| Interstate 95 and Interstate 75 | I-95 is the main north to south spine through Downtown and the east side. I-75 ends at its southern terminus in Miami Lakes at the Palmetto Expressway and runs through Hialeah toward the northwest. |
| Palmetto Expressway (SR 826) | A 29.9 mile bypass around the metro from US 1 at Pinecrest and Kendall to Sunny Isles Beach, with some stretches carrying more than 250,000 vehicles a day. It meets I-75, SR 924, SR 836 and the Golden Glades Interchange. |
| Florida's Turnpike and Homestead Extension | Runs along the western edge of Kendall and Doral and south to its terminus at US 1 in Florida City, the main west-side route to South Dade. |
| Dolphin Expressway (SR 836) | A toll expressway of about 14 miles from Tamiami (SW 137th Avenue) east to I-95, named in 1974 for the Dolphins. I-395 continues from there to Biscayne Boulevard and the MacArthur Causeway. |
| Airport Expressway (SR 112) and I-195 | The Airport Expressway runs 4.3 miles from the MIA entrance to I-95, then continues as I-195 over the Julia Tuttle Causeway to Miami Beach. |
| Don Shula Expressway (SR 874) and US 1 | SR 874 crosses Kendall from northeast to southwest, while US 1 (Biscayne Boulevard, then South Dixie Highway) runs the full length of the county and is the only road to the Florida Keys. |
| Causeways to Miami Beach and Key Biscayne | Julia Tuttle, MacArthur, Venetian and 79th Street causeways link Miami Beach to the mainland, and the Rickenbacker Causeway serves Virginia Key and Key Biscayne. |
| Metrorail, Metromover and Tri-Rail | Metrorail has 23 stations on 24.4 miles with Green and Orange lines, running from Dadeland South to Palmetto and to the airport. Metromover serves Downtown and Brickell, and Tri-Rail connects at the Metrorail transfer station and the Miami Intermodal Center. |
| Tamiami Trail (US 41 and SW 8th Street) | Becomes SW 8th Street, or Calle Ocho, through Little Havana and runs west across the Everglades. It opened April 26, 1928. |
The county lines inside the county
Broward Starts Just North, and the Keys Begin at the Bottom
Broward County starts just north of Aventura and Miami Gardens, and people say South Florida for both, but the county line is a real service boundary: licenses, permits, tolls and travel times change at it. A business that takes work in both counties can run two plans, one for Miami-Dade County, Florida and one for Broward. We recommend treating them separately on the website and in ads.
At the other end, Florida City is the mainland entrance to the Florida Keys because US 1 is the only road route there. A business willing to travel to the Keys can reach Homestead, Florida City and Redland customers on the way, but should decide in advance whether it wants to be a Keys business at all. The digital marketing page covers how to set that decision into a 90 day plan.
Institutions as geography
Places That Pull Customers From Every Direction
Airports, a seaport, universities and hospitals draw people from many areas and set up pockets of demand around them. We treat them as geography, not as customers.
| Place | Kind | Why it matters for geography |
|---|---|---|
| Miami International Airport | airport | A record 56 million passengers in 2024, and the top US airport for foreign international freight, with the Miami Intermodal Center just east connecting rail and buses. |
| PortMiami | port | The county's cruise and cargo seaport, with 8,564,225 cruise passengers in fiscal 2025 and 766,000 travelers flying into MIA in 2024 specifically to cruise. |
| University of Miami | university | In Coral Gables, with 16,479 faculty and staff in 2021, the city's largest employer and the county's second largest. |
| Florida International University | university | Main campus at University Park in the Westchester area, plus the Biscayne Bay Campus in North Miami, and among the largest US universities by enrollment. |
| Miami Dade College | university | A multi-campus college, including a Kendall Campus, with more than 100,000 students. |
| Jackson Memorial Hospital | hospital | The primary teaching hospital for the University of Miami medical school in the Health District, with 1,547 beds. |
| Baptist Health South Florida | hospital | Listed as the county's largest employer in the Beacon Council data, with 11,353 employees in 2014. |
| Hard Rock Stadium | venue | Capacity 64,767 in Miami Gardens, home of the Dolphins and Hurricanes football, and host of the Miami Open and the Miami Grand Prix. |
| Miami Beach Convention Center | venue | Opened in 1958 and home of Art Basel Miami Beach. |
Draw your own map
Five Steps to a Coverage Order for Your Business
List where the last twenty customers were
Use addresses from invoices, not guesses. Mark each area on a printed county map or in a spreadsheet.
Mark the travel boundaries
Where does a crew lose more than an hour round trip? Draw that line. Causeways and tolls count.
Group the areas
Use the four waves above or make your own. Areas on the same expressway belong together.
Choose the first wave
Pick the group with your best customers and the least competition you cannot beat. Build pages, profiles and ads for it.
Review quarterly
Move to the next wave when the first one produces steady calls. Use the business landscape page to see which trades are crowded.
Questions
Coverage Questions Before You Choose Areas
Is covering all fourteen areas realistic for a small company?
Rarely. Most service businesses do best with one wave of three to five areas at first, because more areas spread pages, profiles and budget thin. When calls from the first wave are steady and your crews can handle the load, add the next group and keep refreshing the first.
What does acting on a Miami-Dade County coverage map cost?
The mapping is part of the Organic Growth plans: Silver at $1,495 a month, Gold at $2,495 with a managed website and Platinum at $3,495. RankGuarantee™ at $495 a month adds 25 landing pages aimed at your areas. No setup fee and no contract.
City names or neighborhood names: which do customers type?
Both, depending on the trade and the audience. Brickell, Wynwood and Coconut Grove are searched as names on their own, and many unincorporated areas only exist as names with no city hall behind them. We check which forms people actually use before building a page for each of them.
Do South Dade pages pay off if I rarely drive that far?
Only if you really take jobs there. South Dade is far from the core, so fewer businesses chase it, and customers often search for a nearby company first. If your crews never drive south of Kendall, spend the effort on the areas you reach every week instead.
What about customers who live over the Broward line?
Keep separate pages and, if you run ads, separate campaigns. Broward searchers expect Broward information such as roads, permits and place names, and a combined page for both counties usually does not serve either audience as well as two focused pages would.
Do visitors count as a coverage area?
In a way. Visitors are concentrated around Miami Beach, Downtown, the airport, the port and the park gateways. A business that serves them can build a profile and ads around those anchors and the winter peak instead of trying to match residential areas.
Does a one-address business get anything from this map?
Yes. One address can still serve several areas through service-area settings on the Business Profile and area pages on the website. The map tells you which areas are realistic for that address, so you do not claim places your crews cannot reach in a reasonable time.
Explore more
More Pages for Covering the County
Start Here
- Search Engine OptimizationName-by-name search engine optimization for a county of 34 cities, plus how to judge any SEO company or consultant.
- Digital MarketingA 90 day order of work for a high-season county, written for three kinds of business and a map of 34 cities.
- Online MarketingThe presence audit for a county where a stranger's phone search decides the visit: what to check, in what order, by kind of business.
- HomeAn online marketing company for the whole county: search first, then paid ads, Maps, AI search and the website.
Get Found in Search
Paid Advertising
- Google Ads ManagementPaid search drawn around corridors, causeways and peak weeks instead of a county-wide circle, with calls tracked from the first click.
- PPC ManagementWhen paid clicks should lead, share or trail organic work in the trades with the most neighbors, and which ad channels deserve a test.
- Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram)Facebook and Instagram advertising for a county of renters, families, retirees and visitors, with honest notes on what it cannot do.
Website and Content
- Lead GenerationWhere a call, form or message really starts in a county of residents, visitors and international trade, and how to own that channel.
- Website DesignWebsites for a business that serves several cities, two languages and customers who reach it by phone, with a page for every area and service.
- Content MarketingA publishing calendar for a county where visitors, storms and winter events change what customers search for, month by month.
Around the County
- Marketing by Area (you are here)Fourteen areas of a very large county, how they group, what customers call them and the order in which a business can realistically cover them.
- Local Business LandscapeFifteen trades counted from Census records: which are crowded, which are small shops, which grew since 2017 and what new home permits add.
Get in Touch
Ask Us to Draw Your Coverage Order
Tell us where your crew starts each day and which areas you want more work from, and we will sketch the order in which to build pages, profiles and ads. Call 610-825-4363 or email hello@getphound.com.