- published: 12 Aug 2013
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The Emerald Coast is an area in the US state of Florida on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico which stretches about 100 miles through four counties, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, and Bay, from Gulf Breeze on the east side of Pensacola Bay to Panama City on the east side of the St. Andrews Bay, although some South Alabama communities use it as well.
Part of it had previously been dubbed the "Playground of the Gulfcoast" from the 1940s through the 1980s, as witnessed by the name of the Fort Walton Beach, Florida newspaper, the Playground News, later the Playground Daily News, now the Northwest Florida Daily News. In the postwar era, the stretch of coast between Fort Walton Beach and Panama City was also called the "Miracle Strip."
According to the Daily News, the term Emerald Coast was coined in 1983 by a junior high school student, Andrew Dier, who won $50 in the contest for a new area slogan. A disparaging term for the area is the "Redneck Riviera," which is sometimes considered to stretch to Gulf Shores, Alabama.