§ The county
Polk County, Florida.
Between Tampa and Orlando, 550 lakes and an ancient sand ridge. We cover it from Lake Wales outward — the Singing Tower, Spook Hill, the scrub, and every town within an hour.
Start here
The three things to see first.
Lake Wales · National Historic Landmark
Bok Tower Gardens
The 205-foot Singing Tower on Iron Mountain, an Olmsted garden around it, and a 60-bell carillon played daily. The county's signature place.
Read the guide →Lake Wales · Free roadside oddity
Spook Hill
Put the car in neutral at the white line and watch it roll the wrong way. Five minutes, no ticket, pure Old Florida.
Read the guide →Lake Wales to Frostproof · Scrub & lakes
The Lake Wales Ridge
Ancient dunes, sand-bottom lakes, and one of the rarest ecosystems in North America — Catfish Creek Preserve, Crooked Lake, and Lake Kissimmee State Park.
Read the guide →County basics
What Polk County actually is.
Polk sits in the middle of the peninsula, big enough to hold phosphate pits, orange groves, cattle prairie, and two theme-park commuter towns at once. Bartow runs the courthouse, Lakeland has the college and the Frank Lloyd Wright campus, Winter Haven has the lakes, and Lake Wales sits on the high ground with the carillon.
The Lake Wales Ridge is the reason any of it looks the way it does: a strip of ancient dune 100 feet above the flatwoods, dry enough for citrus, rare enough that its scrub plants exist nowhere else on earth.
- County seat
- Bartow
- Largest cities
- Lakeland, Winter Haven, Haines City, Bartow, Lake Wales
- Land area
- ~2,010 sq mi — one of Florida's largest counties
- Lakes
- Roughly 550 named lakes, including the Winter Haven Chain of Lakes
- High ground
- The Lake Wales Ridge, an ancient sand-dune spine running north–south
- Known for
- Citrus, phosphate, spring baseball, and the Singing Tower
Towns we cover
Polk County, town by town.
Lake Wales
Home base — downtown Park Avenue, the CRA, and the open mic.
Winter Haven
Chain of Lakes, Legoland, Central Avenue dining.
Bartow
The county seat, and the best porch-and-oak street grid in Polk.
Lakeland
The big city on the Ridge — swans, Frank Lloyd Wright, and a real dinner scene.
Haines City
The US-27 gateway — ballfields, Lake Eva, and the road to I-4.
Frostproof
A citrus town that kept its main street.
Babson Park
A college hamlet on Crooked Lake, twelve minutes from downtown.
Dundee
Ridge town on the lakes, closest neighbor to Bok Tower.
Lake Alfred
Antiques, citrus science, and a very good rail-trail.
Auburndale
Lake Ariana, the TECO Trail, and Polk's biggest indoor sports draw.