Stuart, Florida

 city, county seat

Stuart is a city in Martin County, Florida, on Florida's Treasure Coast. As of 2007, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 15,964. Stuart is the county seat of Martin County. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 8.5 square miles (22.1 km²), of which, 6.3 square miles (16.3 km²) of it is land and 2.2 square miles (5.7 km²) of it is water.

In the 1700s, several Spanish galleons shipwrecked in the Martin County area of Florida's Treasure Coast. The multiple wrecks were reportedly the result of a hurricane, and the ships were carrying unknown quantities of gold and silver. Some of this treasure has since been recovered, and its presence resulted in the region's name.

The Treasure Coast area that became Stuart was first settled by non-Native Americans in 1870. From 1893-1895, the area was called Potsdam. This name was chosen by Otto Stypmann, a local landowner originally from Potsdam, Germany. Stypmann, with his brother Ernest, owned the land that would become downtown Stuart. Potsdam was renamed Stuart in 1895, after the establishment of the Florida East Coast Railway, in honor of another local landowner named Homer Hine Stuart, Jr. Stuart was incorporated as a town in 1914, it was located in what was then Palm Beach County. The city of Stuart is known as the Sailfish Capital of the World, because of the many sailfish found in the ocean off Martin County.