Orlando Areas & Neighborhoods
Orlando Citizen covers this region area by area. Every hub below is a standing front page for its neighborhood, district or town: what the place is, who it’s for, the businesses our Top Businesses rankings have scored there, its category winners, and the magazine’s guides and records set in it. New rankings land in the hubs automatically as the program grows.
Start with the map if you think spatially: the Top Spots Map plots all 290 ranked businesses. Or read the neighborhood guide our relocation readers use.
The Parks & the Visitor Corridor
Disney World
Walt Disney World Resort: four theme parks, two water parks, Disney Springs and a small city's worth of hotels.
Disney Springs
Disney's waterfront dining and shopping district: Town Center, The Landing, Marketplace and West Side.
Universal Orlando
Universal Orlando Resort: three theme parks, Volcano Bay, CityWalk and the resort hotels.
Universal CityWalk
Universal's dining and nightlife district: the neon gauntlet between the parking decks and the park gates.
Lake Buena Vista
The Disney World gateway: resort boulevards, Palm Parkway dining and the gates themselves.
International Drive
The visitor corridor: eleven miles of attractions, hotels and dinner shows along I-Drive.
Kissimmee
The 192 corridor and a real old Florida downtown: gateway to the parks, cattle country at heart.
Celebration
Disney's planned town: front porches, Market Street and rocking chairs by the lake.
Reunion
The golf resort community by the gates: three signature courses and a rooftop above the fairways.
Championsgate
The resort gates at I-4: the Omni, Norman golf and a villa city built for the parks trip.
Davenport
Polk County's US-27 villa corridor: pool homes, Posner Park and the parks without a resort in sight.
City Neighborhoods
Downtown Orlando
The business core around Lake Eola: towers, arenas, Church Street nights and the city's swan-boat front porch.
Lake Eola Heights
Orlando's first historic district: brick streets and old houses on Lake Eola's east shore, with the park as its front yard.
Thornton Park
Brick streets and bungalows on Lake Eola's east shore: downtown's village.
Parramore
Downtown's historic Black neighborhood west of I-4: the Wells'Built, Callahan, and a century of Orlando history on Church Street.
Delaney Park
Brick streets and century oaks just south of downtown, gathered around one of Orlando's oldest parks.
SoDo
South of Downtown: the Orange Avenue working corridor of taquerias, bakeries and neighborhood regulars.
Mills 50
Orlando's indie main-street corridor: Mills Avenue and Colonial Drive, where the city's food and music live.
Ivanhoe Village
The Main Street district on Lake Ivanhoe: Antique Row on Orange Avenue, Virginia Drive dining and a sunset skyline over the water.
Colonialtown
The bungalow neighborhoods astride Colonial Drive: a 2000 historic district south of it, Maxine's on Shine in its quiet streets.
Hourglass District
The compact Curry Ford Road food-and-drink pocket southeast of downtown, named for nearby Hourglass Lake.
College Park
Edgewater Drive's village strip: brick streets, lake views and Dubsdread golf since 1926.
Baldwin Park
The new-urbanist village built on the old Naval Training Center: New Broad Street around Lake Baldwin.
Audubon Park
The Garden District around Corrine Drive: East End Market, Leu Gardens and vintage Orlando.
Milk District
The east-side indie strip around Bumby Avenue: dive bars, bakeries and the old T.G. Lee dairy.
Pine Hills
One of Orlando's first and largest suburbs on the west side: Evans High, Barnett Park and a profoundly multicultural food corridor.
Metrowest
The 1980s master-planned community built around MetroWest Golf Club: Hiawassee Road living, Turkey Lake at the edge and Valencia's west campus.
Dr. Phillips
Sand Lake Road's Restaurant Row and Bay Hill: Orlando's polished southwest, named for a citrus baron.
Bay Hill
Arnold Palmer's golf enclave on the Butler Chain: the Bay Hill Club & Lodge, the Invitational every March, inside the Dr. Phillips fabric.
Lake Nona
Medical City and the new southeast: master-planned, fast-growing, quietly ambitious.
South Orlando & the East Side
Conway
One of Orlando's oldest settlements: brick-road history, ranch houses and the Conway Chain of Lakes south of downtown.
Belle Isle
The little city incorporated twice to save its lakes: Lake Conway and Lake Gatlin shores, Warren Park and quiet streets.
Hunter's Creek
The big master-planned community on John Young Parkway: seven parks, its own shopping village and Gatorland at the gate.
Southchase
The working OBT corridor south of Sand Lake: small restaurants, barbershops and salons between the Florida Mall and Meadow Woods.
Meadow Woods
Quiet, subdivision-built suburbia at the south edge: the recreation center, its own SunRail station and the airport next door.
East Orlando
The UCF and Alafaya corridor: Florida's largest university, the Research Park and the east side's student food scene.
Waterford Lakes
The east side's retail hub: the big open-air Town Center on Alafaya Trail and the lake-dotted subdivisions behind it.
Avalon Park
The new-urbanist town in the far east: its own downtown on Avalon Park Boulevard, a food hall and front porches built in the 2000s.
St. Cloud
The Soldier City on East Lake Toho: a veterans-founded brick downtown on New York Avenue, Kissimmee's quieter lakefront sibling.
Towns & Suburbs
Winter Park
Brick streets, Park Avenue, Rollins College and the chain of lakes — Orlando's polished old soul.
Maitland
Old Orlando money on the chain of lakes' west shore: museums, the Art & History campus and S. Orlando Avenue.
Eatonville
Incorporated August 15, 1887: a first self-governing Black town in America, and Zora Neale Hurston's hometown.
Altamonte Springs
Seminole County's commercial crossroads, gathered around Cranes Roost Park and the SR-436 corridor.
Casselberry
The lake-dotted, fern-born city on 17-92: Lake Concord Park's art campus, Secret Lake and Bowigens beer.
Longwood
Historic Seminole under the oaks: the 1885 Bradlee-McIntyre House, a SunRail downtown and Reiter Park.
Winter Springs
Oak-canopied east Seminole on Lake Jesup's south shore: Trotwood Park, the Town Center and older-growth calm.
Lake Mary
Seminole County's polished I-4 suburb: Colonial TownPark dining, a Saturday market and golf in every direction.
Heathrow
The guard-gated golf enclave inside Lake Mary: 36 holes, oak lanes and a world that begins at the gate.
Sanford
The brick-lined riverfront downtown on Lake Monroe: Seminole County's craft-beer capital.
Oviedo
The old celery town gone suburban: a historic downtown — chickens and all — on the Little Econlockhatchee.
Winter Garden
The preserved citrus town on Lake Apopka: Plant Street, the West Orange Trail and Friday-night energy.
Windermere
The quiet lake town between the Butler Chain: sand roads, old cottages and Friday farmers market.
Apopka
The Indoor Foliage Capital of the World: nurseries, springs and Lake Apopka's wild north shore on US-441.
Ocoee
West Orange's lakefront city on Starke Lake: a small historic downtown, West Oaks Mall — and the region's No. 1 barbershop.
Horizon West
Orange County's 21,000-acre new-urbanist master plan south of Winter Garden: five villages and a town center, all still filling in.
Hamlin
Horizon West's town center on Lake Hancock: the Cinépolis block, a lakeside dining row and the new west side's commercial heart.
Day-Trip Towns
Clermont
Florida's hill country: the Citrus Tower, Lake Minneola and a town that trains Olympians.
Mount Dora
The antique town on Lake Dora: an 1883 inn, a freshwater lighthouse and festival streets.
Day Trips & the Wider Region
LEGOLAND Florida
An hour southwest in Winter Haven — the day trip the Davenport and Kissimmee corridors run on.
Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex
Forty-five minutes east on the Space Coast: rockets, Atlantis, and launch-day electricity.
Busch Gardens Tampa Bay
Seventy-five minutes west: a serious safari park with one of the finest coaster lineups in the country.
The full attraction-by-attraction reference lives in the Tourism Guide.