The Weeki Wachee River is a river in

Hernando County Hernando County is a county located on the west central coast of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 194,515. Its county seat is Brooksville, and its largest community is Spring Hill. Hernando County is incl ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It flows U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
accessed April 18, 2011 westwards from

Weeki Wachee Weeki Wachee is an unincorporated community and former city located in Hernando County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the community has a total population of 16. The Weeki Wachee Preserve and the Weeki Wachee Springs park are ...

to the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...

at the Weeki Wachee estuary. The name is derived from the

Seminole The Seminole are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century. Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise three federally recognized tribes: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, ...

: ''uekiwv'' /oykéywa, wi:-/ "spring" and ''-uce'' /-oci/ "small", signifying either a small spring or an offshoot of a town named Spring. The river is best known for its spring, and the

Weeki Wachee Springs Weeki Wachee Springs is a natural tourist attraction located in Weeki Wachee, Florida, where underwater performances by "mermaids," women wearing fish tails as well as other fanciful outfits, can be viewed in an aquarium-like setting in the spring ...

attraction built on the premises. The spring is the surfacing point of an underground river, which is the deepest naturally occurring spring in the United States. It measures about wide and long, and daily water averages 150 million gallons (644 million liters). The water temperature is a steady year-round.

References

* Jack B. Martin, Margaret McKane Mauldin: ''A Dictionary of Creek/Muskogee: With Notes on the Florida and Oklahoma Seminole Dialects of Creek'', University of Nebraska Press (2000). * ''The Miami Herald'': "For the mermaids, it's where the show springs eternal", by Jodi Mailander Farrell, 6 August 2006. (via Activa) Bodies of water of Hernando County, Florida Rivers of Florida Outstanding Florida Waters {{Florida-river-stub