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is the county seat of St. Johns County , Florida, in the United States. It is the oldest continuously occupied European established city, and the oldest port, in the continental United States. St. Augustine lies in a region of Florida known as The First Coast, which extends from Amelia Island in the north, south to Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Palm Coast. According to the 2000 census, the city population was 11,592; in 2004, the population estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau was 12,157.
St. Augustine was founded by the Spanish under Admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in 1565. The first Christian worship service held in a permanent settlement in the continental United States was a Catholic Mass celebrated in St. Augustine. A few settlements were founded prior to St. Augustine but all failed, including the original Pensacola colony in West Florida, founded by Tristán de Luna y Arellano in 1559, with the area abandoned in 1561 due to hurricanes, famine and warring tribes. Fort Caroline, founded by the French (and including a number of free Africans) in 1564 in what is today Jacksonville, Florida only lasted a year before being obliterated by the Spanish in 1565.