Cedar Key
Start with Cedar Key to understand the established center, nearby services and everyday rhythm within Levy County.
Complete Florida county guide
Levy
County
Rural land, small towns, Gulf marshes and Cedar Key’s working-waterfront character make Levy a quiet bridge between North Florida and the Nature Coast.
Sunset FloridaGulf Coast
REGIONGulf Coast
COMMUNITIES TO START WITHCedar Key · Chiefland · Williston · Bronson
LIFESTYLE SIGNALSOld Florida · Acreage · Fishing
Start with daily life
What Levy County feels like before you choose a neighborhood.
Rural land, small towns, Gulf marshes and Cedar Key’s working-waterfront character make Levy a quiet bridge between North Florida and the Nature Coast.
Use this guide as a first-pass planning tool. On a scouting trip, compare actual commute routes, insurance requirements, medical access, school or training options and the places you would use in an ordinary week—not only the best-known attraction.
The numbers that matter if you are moving
- Population
- 45,391Census estimate
- At the last full count
- 42,9152020 Census
- Median age
- 46.7
- Aged 65 and over
- 25.1%
- Under 18
- 19.4%
- Median household income
- $56,750
- Median home value
- $190,600what owners estimate
- Homeownership
- 81.4%
- People per household
- 2.43
- Average commute
- 30.4 minutes
U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, published January 2026, read September 19, 2026. Survey figures are estimates; median home value is what owners estimate their home is worth, not a sale price.
COUNTY LIFESTYLE THEMES
Old FloridaAcreageFishing
Relocation decision desk
Six checks before you choose a county.
Property cost, flood and wind, schools, healthcare, daily travel and storm readiness.
How to research a Florida county →Communities to compare
Begin with the county’s major places.
These are starting points, not a ranking. Add nearby towns and neighborhoods as you learn your daily route and housing priorities.
Chiefland
Use Chiefland to compare housing patterns, main-road access and the shopping or medical stops used during a normal week.
Williston
Walk or drive through Williston at different times of day to judge traffic, neighborhood character and access to outdoor space.
Bronson
Compare Bronson with the county’s other major places for commute direction, home choices and the pace you want in Levy County.
Hospitals in Levy County
No licensed hospital inside Levy County.
The state's hospital list names none in the county. Its search by address finds the hospitals nearest any home you are considering.
How do I compare hospitals in Florida? →How do I find a doctor who takes Medicare? →Find the hospitals nearest an address ↗
Source: Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, FloridaHealthFinder, Locate a Facility (hospitals), read September 25, 2026.
Evergreen county experiences
12 places that reveal the county.
Use enduring natural, historic and cultural places to understand the area beyond a real-estate showing.
Cedar Key Museum State Park
Saint Clair Whitman spent his life on Cedar Key gathering seashells and native artifacts, and did it well enough that National Geographic took notice of him. The collection he built is the core of this museum.
Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge
It was established in 1979 to protect the estuary where the river meets the Gulf, and that estuary is one of the least altered on the whole coast, which is the reason the refuge exists. Inside it are bottomland hardwood swamp, pine forest, cypress domes, tidal creeks and a great deal of salt marsh.
Devil’s Den Prehistoric Spring
The roof of a limestone cavern fell in long ago and left an opening at the surface with clear water about a hundred and twenty feet across below it. Light comes down through that opening and that is what people photograph.
Manatee Springs State Park
William Bartram came here in 1774, saw a dead manatee on the bank, and wrote the place up as Manate Springs; the name stuck. The spring holds at seventy-two degrees and that is why the manatees come, moving up the run from the Suwannee in fall and winter when the river turns cold, with roughly a hundred sightings logged in a year.
Cedar Key Scrub State Reserve
Sand pine scrub is one of the older habitats in Florida and one of the scarcest, because it grows on the high dry sand ridges that are also the easiest ground to build on. What survives here supports the Florida scrub-jay, a bird found nowhere else in the world and now confined to fragments of this habitat.
Shell Mound Archaeological Site
Archaeologists know it as site 8LV42. It became an important gathering place around the year 400 and stayed so through about 650, and it was a civic and ceremonial center rather than simply a trash heap: people lived here and also came here.
Goethe State Forest
The state established it in 1992 and named it for James Tillinghast Goethe, a local lumber company owner who sold most of the land to Florida rather than to developers. What that purchase saved is one of the larger surviving blocks of longleaf pine in the state, and with it the red-cockaded woodpecker, a bird that will nest only in mature living longleaf and has disappeared from most of the southeast as the old pine went.
Cedar Lakes Woods and Gardens
The quarry was dug more than a century ago to supply rock for the foundation of Highway 27 and then abandoned. Doctor Raymond T. Webber found it in 1991 and bought it, and over roughly thirty years he and a small crew turned the pit into a garden without using heavy machinery at all.
Fanning Springs State Park
It was one of the thirty-three first-magnitude springs in Florida, but the flow had dropped enough by 2008 that it is now counted as historically first magnitude rather than currently so, which is the plain fact and worth knowing before driving out expecting a torrent. The basin is still open for swimming and the water still holds its temperature, so manatees come up the run from the Suwannee in the cold months.
Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuge
This is one of the largest colonial bird nesting grounds in Florida. White ibis, brown pelicans, egrets, herons and cormorants breed on the keys, around twenty thousand birds in an average year now, well down on the historic counts.
Cedar Key Historical Society Museum
The Cedar Key Historical Society was formed in 1977 and the museum it runs occupies the Lutterloh House, with the Andrews House beside it as an annex. The Andrews House has a history of its own: it stood on Atsena Otie Key, the island where the original settlement was, and was moved across to the mainland after the hurricane of 1896 destroyed the community there.
Blue Grotto Dive Resort
There are three parts to it. The open basin drops to about forty feet and holds training platforms, which is why so many divers get certified here. Below that the upper cavern runs to around fifty feet and contains an air bell with breathable air pumped down from the surface, so a diver can surface inside the rock and take the regulator out, which is an odd and memorable thing to do.
Beaches in Levy County
Every beach, one clear card.
3BEACH DESTINATIONS
Each card gives the beach, its visit category and its next steps: the practical visit guide, the official site where the beach has one, and directions. Always verify current parking, fees, water quality, lifeguard coverage and posted rules before leaving.
STANDARD PUBLIC BEACH
Not identified here as clothing-optional. This category does not guarantee child safety, calm water or lifeguard coverage.
CLOTHING-OPTIONAL
Nudity is officially permitted in all or part of the destination. Read the current notice before taking children.
NUDITY ADVISORY
Nudity may be encountered in a remote area even without an official clothing-optional designation.
Cedar Key City Beach
Levy County, Florida
A small beach in Cedar Key City Park at 192 Second Street, in a town that is more fishing village than beach resort. A roped-off swimming area with calm, shallow water, though the bottom is muddy and sandspurs grow nearby, so wear beach shoes. The tide range is large: water that is waist-deep can be mudflat within a couple of hours. Restrooms, outdoor showers, a playground, picnic tables, benches and a pavilion beside the sand. No lifeguards. Parking is free but limited, and dogs on a leash are welcome.
Shell Mound Beach
Levy County, Florida
The Shell Mound unit of the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge, at 17650 SW 78th Place, about nine miles north of Cedar Key. The Shell Mound Trail is a loop of just under four tenths of a mile that winds around a Native American shell midden and opens out onto the salt marsh, and the Dennis Creek Trail runs from the same unit with boardwalks, benches and views over uplands, tidal creeks and marsh. There is a fishing and observation deck and a boat ramp. Watch the mudflats for American avocets and marbled godwits. Open all year, sunrise to sunset, and free. No camping and no overnight parking anywhere in the refuge.
Atsena Otie Key Beach
Levy County, Florida
One of the islands of the Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuge, lying off Cedar Key and reached only by water, so you need a boat of your own or a rented one to get out there. Fires and camping are not allowed anywhere in the refuge, dogs must stay on a leash, and nothing may be collected: no plants, no animals, no shells and no artifacts.
Official planning desk
Check current public information before making the move.
Florida disaster preparedness mapsOfficial evacuation-zone, route and storm-surge planning maps.
Open official source ↗
Florida school accountability reportsCurrent state school and district accountability information.
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Florida community health dataCounty-level public health indicators and community reports.
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Florida housing resourcesState resources for homebuyers, renters and local assistance programs.
Open official source ↗QUESTIONS THAT NAME THIS COUNTY
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