Wellington (Florida)

Wellington is a village just west of West Palm Beach in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. As of 2014, the city had a population of 61,485 according to the U.S. Census Bureau, making it the most populous village in the state. It is the fifth largest municipality in Palm Beach County by population. Wellington is part of the South Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. Wellington was named Money Magazine's "Top 100" Best Places to Live in 2010. Although Wellington is not a village under any standard definition of the term village in the US, it is referred to officially as the "Village of Wellington".HistoryWellington was originally the world's largest strawberry patch on land called the Flying Cow Ranch; "Flying" because the founder was an aviator, and "Cow" stood for the initials for Charles Oliver Wellington (C.O.W.). In the 1950s, Mr. Wellington bought 18,000acre of central Palm Beach County swampland, which would eventually become the Village of Wellington. Wellington began as a planned unit development approved by Palm Beach County in 1972, and up until 1990, it functioned as a sprawling bedroom community with few shopping centers or restaurants until it was incorporated in December 1995. It has now become known as an international center for equestrian sports.GeographyWellington is located at . According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 31.4sqmi, of which 31.0sqmi is land and 0.3sqmi is water .