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() is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida incorporated in May 1925. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 74,764; the 2006 population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau was 86,396. However, the majority of the people under the postal address of
, about 200,000 in total, are not actual residents of municipal Boca Raton. This is due to the county's stringent annexation laws passed in 2004. It is estimated that on any given day, there are roughly 350,000 people in the city itself.
By population and land mass, Boca Raton is the largest city between West Palm Beach and Pompano Beach, Broward County.
Listed on early maps as "Boca Ratones," many people assume the name is simply translated to "Rat's Mouth". The Spanish word boca (or mouth) was often used to describe an inlet, while ratón (literally
) was used by Spanish sailors to describe rocks that gnawed at a ship's cable, or as a term for a cowardly thief. The name
originally appeared on eighteenth century maps associated with an inlet in the Biscayne Bay area of Miami. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the term was mistakenly moved north to its current location on most maps and applied to Lake Boca Raton, whose inlet was closed at the time.