Tampa Bay Arts and Culture

Museums l Performing Arts & Concert Venues l Arts Council of Hillsborough County

The arts are a vital component of this vibrant community. Theater groups, orchestras, world-class performance halls, museums, galleries and much more provide enriching performances, inspirational youth education programs, and exhibits that showcase the world's most talented artists, actors and musicians. There are always eye-catching exhibits and interesting programs that highlight any number of media and venues.

The cigar industry originally brought to Tampa in the late 1800s by Don Vicente Martinez Ybor created a 12,000-strong immigrant workforce that churned out 700 million cigars a year. It also created a vivacious Latin community, a "cultural collage," where Spaniards, Italians, Cubans, Germans and Romanian Jews worked and lived side by side.

Today, Tampa is as much a multi-cultural city as ever with a thriving and powerful Hispanic population that represents all different Latin American countries. In all, approximately 10% of Tampa's population are Latino and one recent study reported that one out of every three people in Tampa bears a Hispanic surname. Tampa is such a multi-cultural hotbed that the city was has made Hispanic Magazine's list of "Top Cities for Hispanics" three years running, topping the list in 2000. Most recently, the Tampa Bay area was named one of the top five most diverse, integrated urban areas in the country by the U.S. Census Bureau.