Where to live in Tallahassee
Tallahassee is 103 square miles of land and 204,902 people on the Census Bureau's estimate for July 2025, the state capital, with Florida State and Florida A&M inside its limits and 27.2% of its residents aged three and over in college or graduate school. One school district, Leon County Schools, covers every address, and the levies on a tax bill are the same in every guide, so what the neighborhood decides here is everything else: how near the campuses it sits; whether one of the County's canopy roads runs beside it; whether the bus comes all day or only at the weekday peaks; how much of it the flood map takes in; and whether the address is in the city at all, or in Killearn Lakes Plantation, Bradfordville or the rest of unincorporated Leon County beside it. These are 20 neighborhood guides, filterable by area below.
Browse dedicated pages for Midtown, Los Robles and Lafayette Park east of Monroe Street, Frenchtown and Levy Park west of it, Greater Bond and Providence beside the universities, South City and Myers Park below downtown, Betton Hills and Waverly Hills off Thomasville and Meridian Roads, out to Killearn Estates and Ox Bottom Manor, Forest Heights and Holly Hills and Parkside off Tharpe Street, out to Huntington Woods by Mission Road, Indianhead Acres off Lafayette Street, Piney-Z and Buck Lake by Lake Lafayette, and Southwood.
20 communities across the city
A start on a city of about 205,000 people that the City does not divide into neighborhoods, so each guide is a homeowner or neighborhood association's own area as the Tallahassee-Leon County GIS office maps it, clipped to the City limits and named for the association. Filter by area of the city, then page through the rest.
Betton Hills
The Betton Hills Neighborhood Association's area between Thomasville Road and Centerville Road north of Mitchell Avenue, 477 acres and about 1,150 residents in 2020, with Trescott and Laguna Ponds inside.
Buck Lake
The city's share of the Bucklake Alliance's area east of Capital Circle Northeast between Mahan Drive and Conner Boulevard, about 4,900 acres and 5,700 residents in 2020, about 850 of them at the federal prison, with Tom Brown Park, Lafayette Heritage Trail Park, the J.R. Alford Greenway, Buck Lake Elementary and Swift Creek Middle School inside.
Forest Heights and Holly Hills
The Forest Heights-Holly Hills Area Neighborhood Association's 336 acres north of West Tharpe Street and west of Old Bainbridge Road, around Sharon Road and Raa Avenue, 1,466 residents in 2020.
Frenchtown
The Frenchtown Neighborhood Association's area north of West Tennessee Street, from North Woodward Avenue to North Adams Street and up to Gibbs Drive, 411 acres and about 4,000 residents in 2020, most of them in the Greater Frenchtown/Southside redevelopment area.
Greater Bond
The Greater Bond Neighborhood Association's area west of Florida A&M between FAMU Way, Lake Bradford Road, Springhill Road and Orange Avenue, 468 acres and about 2,800 residents in 2020, with Bond Elementary, the Walker-Ford Center and pool and Speed-Spencer-Stephens Park inside.
Huntington Woods
The Huntington Woods Neighborhood Association's 145 acres east of Mission Road along Huntington Woods Boulevard in the city's northwest, 669 residents in 2020, built from 1974 and annexed by the City in 1985; the County's larger Huntington Woods Development of Regional Impact lies to the north and northwest, outside the city.
Indianhead Acres
The Indianhead-Lehigh Neighborhood Association's area between East Lafayette Street, Orange Avenue, South Magnolia Drive and Jim Lee Road, 539 acres and 1,543 residents in 2020, on streets that end in Nene, with Indian Head Acres Park and Hartsfield Elementary inside.
Killearn Estates
The Killearn Homes Association's area west of Centerville Road around Killarney Way and the Shamrock loop, 1,880 acres and about 7,200 residents in 2020, the largest guide here, with Lakes Kinsale, Killarney and Kanturk and the Killearn golf club inside.
Lafayette Park
The Lafayette Park Neighborhood Association's area between Miccosukee Road, East 6th Avenue and North Gadsden Street, 182 acres and about 1,150 residents in 2020, with Lafayette Park, its community center and the Lafayette Arts and Crafts Center inside.
Levy Park
The Levy Park Neighborhood Association's area between North Monroe Street and West Tharpe Street, Gibbs Drive and West 4th Avenue, 273 acres and 1,606 residents in 2020, with Levy Park and its pool, Ruediger Elementary and Raa Middle School inside and Lake Ella just across Monroe.
Los Robles
The Los Robles Neighborhood Association's 33 acres in the corner of Thomasville Road and North Meridian Road, the Spanish-named streets of Fernando and Cristobal Drives and Los Robles Park, about 380 residents in 2020.
Midtown
The Midtown Neighborhood Association's area on the County and City map: the blocks on the east side of Thomasville Road around East 7th, 8th and 9th Avenues, 109 acres and 714 residents in 2020, about 450 m from Lake Ella and beside the shops and restaurants along Thomasville Road.
Photographs: A pond on the Miccosukee Greenway by The Bushranger, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons · Lake Leon in Tom Brown Park by Michael Rivera, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons · The Westcott Building at Florida State by Ernie Stephens, CC0, Wikimedia Commons · The pond at Carter-Howell-Strong Park by Michael Rivera, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons · Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church by The Bushranger, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons · The Historic Capitol and the Capitol tower by Michael Rivera, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons · Lake Leon at Tom Brown Park by Adam LaMee, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons · Killarney Park by Michael Rivera, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons · The McCollum Community Center by Michael Rivera, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons · Lake Ella after a snowfall by The Bushranger, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons · The Los Robles gate by Ebyabe, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Showing 1–12 of 20 communities
The five areas at a glance
Two of these five are lines the City draws, taken whole: its Southside Action Plan boundary, and its Multimodal Transportation District around downtown, the universities and Midtown. The other three split the rest of the city on Monroe Street and on Tennessee Street and its continuation, Mahan Drive, the lines residents already use for north side and south side, east and west. Where one area stops and the next begins outside the two City lines is our judgment rather than a map anybody publishes.
| Area | Neighborhoods | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Midtown, Los Robles and Lafayette Park east of Monroe Street, Frenchtown and Levy Park west of it | Frenchtown, Lafayette Park, Levy Park, Los Robles, Midtown | Downtown, the Florida State campus and Midtown, inside the City's Multimodal Transportation District: Midtown, Los Robles and Lafayette Park east of Monroe Street, and Frenchtown and Levy Park west of it, the closest guides to the campus and to the shops of Thomasville Road and North Monroe Street. |
| Greater Bond and Providence beside the universities, South City and Myers Park below downtown | Greater Bond, Myers Park, Providence, South City | The City's own Southside Action Plan line, with Florida A&M inside it: Greater Bond and Providence beside the two campuses, and South City and Myers Park below downtown, where the flood map reaches furthest and the 2024 tornado passed. |
| Betton Hills and Waverly Hills off Thomasville and Meridian Roads, out to Killearn Estates and Ox Bottom Manor | Betton Hills, Killearn Estates, Ox Bottom Manor, Waverly Hills | East of Monroe Street and north of Tennessee Street and Mahan Drive, along the Centerville and Meridian canopy roads: Betton Hills and Waverly Hills close in, and Killearn Estates and Ox Bottom Manor out past Interstate 10, where the bus runs at the peaks only. |
| Forest Heights and Holly Hills and Parkside off Tharpe Street, out to Huntington Woods by Mission Road | Forest Heights and Holly Hills, Huntington Woods, Parkside and Park Terrace | West of Monroe Street and north of Tennessee Street: Forest Heights and Holly Hills along the Old Bainbridge canopy road, Parkside and Park Terrace off Tharpe Street, and Huntington Woods by Mission Road. |
| Indianhead Acres off Lafayette Street, Piney-Z and Buck Lake by Lake Lafayette, and Southwood | Buck Lake, Indianhead Acres, Piney-Z, Southwood | South of Mahan Drive on both sides of Apalachee Parkway: Indianhead Acres on the Old St. Augustine canopy road, Piney-Z and Buck Lake by Lake Lafayette and Tom Brown Park, and the planned community of Southwood. |
Where the neighborhoods come from. No City or County layer draws named neighborhoods for the whole of Tallahassee. What the Tallahassee-Leon County GIS office keeps, with the planning department, the City's neighborhood affairs office and the County, is a map of associations: 586 drawn areas, each the area a homeowners or neighborhood association says it serves, some marked active and some inactive, many of them outside the city, and overlapping. Only 230 of them hold city residents, 112,334 of the city's 196,335 in 2020 between them, 57%, and the layer does not say anyone checks the lines. So every guide here is one association's area, clipped to the City limits and named for the association, with three exceptions the guides state: Frenchtown is its association's area less the 857 residents it shares with Levy Park, who are counted in Levy Park; Buck Lake is the Bucklake Alliance's area inside the city less the 1,620 it shares with Piney-Z; and Buck Lake is the one guide whose association reaches far beyond the city, 23,125 acres in all, of which 4,898 are inside the line. Midtown and Forest Heights and Holly Hills are associations the layer marks inactive, and their guides speak for no one. Each guide's population is the 2020 census count of the blocks inside both its line and the City's current limits, which hold 166 more residents than the 2020 city did, on three blocks annexed since.
The five areas are ours. The City does not publish a grouping that is a way to choose where to live. Its City Commission is elected at large, so there are no council districts to borrow; Leon County's commission districts are the County's and cross the city line; and the association list tags each association NE, NW, SE or SW with no line drawn for the tags. What the City does draw are planning lines, and two of them match what residents mean: the Multimodal Transportation District, 77,509 residents in 2020, and the Southside Action Plan boundary, launched in April 2021, 28,221. So the Southside is the plan's line; Midtown, Downtown and Florida State is the district outside it; and the rest of the city is split on Monroe Street and on Tennessee Street and Mahan Drive. By those rules, in 2020, Midtown, Downtown and Florida State held 58,769 residents, the Southside 28,240, the Northeast 50,573, the Northwest 22,952 and East and Southeast 35,801. Florida A&M is in the Southside, because the plan's line takes in its whole campus, so the core area is named for Florida State alone. Every guide falls wholly in its area except four, and each takes the area that holds most of its residents: Myers Park, 489 in the Southside and 353 in the core, because the plan's line crosses it; Betton Hills, 755 in the Northeast and 396 in the core; Indianhead Acres, 1,458 in East and Southeast and 85 in the core; and Parkside and Park Terrace, 520 in the Northwest and 30 in the core. Which neighborhood lands in which area is our judgment.
What is not here. The twenty neighborhoods this list starts with held 42,866 of the city's 196,335 residents in 2020, 21.8%, because the association map is sparse and its areas are small, and because its largest areas in the city are student districts. Downtown is the first to add: the Downtown Residents Council's area, 1,564 residents, holds City Hall and the Capitol. Griffin Heights, 5,250 residents beside Florida State, and Chapel Ridge, 4,643, are the two largest associations in the core, and both are student districts; Florida State's main campus, 9,923 residents, and Florida A&M's, 2,654, are in no guide. Lake Ella is in no association's area. And some places with a Tallahassee address are not in the city: Killearn Lakes Plantation, Bradfordville, Woodville, Chaires, the Lake Jackson shore, most of the Bucklake Alliance's area and the unincorporated part of Ox Bottom are in unincorporated Leon County, and Midway and Havana are separate towns in Gadsden County. A Tallahassee mailing address does not settle which one a house is in: the Leon County Property Appraiser's record for the property does.