Marco Island is a city and barrier island in Collier County, Florida, twenty miles south of Naples on the Gulf of Mexico. It is the largest barrier island in Southwest Florida's Ten Thousand Islands, a chain of mangrove islands and waterways that stretches toward Cape Sable, and it is a principal city of the Naples–Marco Island metropolitan area. The island has a long human history. The Calusa people flourished along the Southwest Florida coast for centuries before European contact, and the island was later known as La Isla de San Marco before adopting its English name after Florida passed to the United States in 1821. For much of its modern history it remained a quiet outpost of fishing, farming, and pioneer settlement. That changed in the mid-1960s, when the Mackle brothers of the Deltona Corporation purchased much of the island and set out to build a resort community. Their dredges carved more than 100 miles of canals across the island's 24 square miles, creating the waterfront lots and boat access that define Marco Island today. The island's six miles of Gulf beach and its canal network turned it into an affluent residential and resort destination, and it incorporated as a city in the decades that followed. Today Marco Island is home to about 15,800 residents, with a population that swells seasonally. Tourism, boating, and real estate anchor the local economy, and the island's waterfront homes range from canal-front residences to Gulf-front estates. Public schools are part of Collier County Public Schools, including Tommie Barfield Elementary, Marco Island Charter Middle School, and Marco Island Academy. The island's architecture blends Mediterranean and tropical influences, and its neighborhoods are threaded together by the same canals that make boating a daily part of life. For residents and visitors, Marco Island offers a refined Gulf Coast lifestyle built around beaches, shelling, and boating within a short drive of Naples.