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%). Fort Walton Beach is home to a number of people employed in the armed forces. When you visit or walk around Fort Walton Beach, some of the people you will bump into will be military people In and out of uniform, jogging, shopping and generally out and about town. 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. Such areas are often places that visitors and locals go for waterfront activities or taking in the scenery. The overall education level of Fort Walton Beach is somewhat higher than in the average US city of 21.84%: 27.46% of adults 25 and older in the city 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.
