Miami is a large city in the south-east of Florida, in the United States — hot air, the ocean, and beaches that draw huge numbers of tourists. People say Miami for the city, the holiday, the nightlife, or the idea of a warm, flashy American seaside. A lot of people there come from Spanish-speaking countries. Many are Cuban families who left Cuba because they disliked Castro’s communist government, and because the city sits so close to Latin America, Spanish is part of daily life in shops and streets, and many companies use Miami as a door to that region. You say it my-AM-ee. Though actually, Miami Beach is a different city next door; visitors mix the two up all the time. The Florida name comes from the Miami River. The river was named for a great lake that old maps called Lake Miami — the lake we now call Lake Okeechobee. That name comes from Mayaimi, a word of the Mayaimi people who lived on that lake; it meant “big water.” Separately, Miami is also the English name of a Native American people from the Midwest, far from Florida. Same letters on the English page, different root. The city was not named after that tribe.