Fort Walton Beach is a medium-sized coastal city (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of Florida. With a population of 20,998 people and 15 associated neighborhoods, Fort Walton Beach is the 140th largest community in Florida.Fort Walton Beach is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Fort Walton Beach is a city of service providers, professionals, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Fort Walton Beach who work in food service (12.12%), sales jobs (10.61%), and management occupations (8.74%). There are many members of the armed forces living in Fort Walton Beach. You will notice when you visit or live here that some of the people you meet or see around town are employed by the armed services - even if they are not always in uniform. Also of interest is that Fort Walton Beach has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US. Fort Walton Beach is also nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Quite often, nautical areas such as these attract visitors and locals who come to enjoy the scenery and various waterfront activities. The percentage of people in Fort Walton Beach who are college-educated is somewhat higher than the average US community of 21.84%: 27.46% of adults in Fort Walton Beach have at least a bachelor's degree. The per capita income in Fort Walton Beach in 2022 was $36,251, which is middle income relative to Florida, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $145,004 for a family of four. However, Fort Walton Beach contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Fort Walton Beach is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Fort Walton Beach home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Fort Walton Beach residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Fort Walton Beach also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 11.13% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Fort Walton Beach include English, German, Irish, Scottish, and Italian. The most common language spoken in Fort Walton Beach is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Thai.
