The unincorporated "town" of Merritt Island is located on Florida's largest island, Merritt Island. This Brevard County island and place is home to NASA's Kennedy Space Center, a major tourist attraction and launching point for NASA shuttles. Juxtaposed with this is the Merritt Island
National Wildlife Refuge, a 140,000-acre nature sanctuary.
Merritt Island is only 20 minutes from Cocoa Beach, is the place not only for a great life but a place of activity such as water skiing, jet skiing, boating, fishing, airboating, and wind sailing in the beautiful rivers of the Banana River and Indian River.
Merritt Island is not strictly an island at all, but part of a long peninsula connected to the mainland at the north, but separated from it to the south by the Indian River intracoastal waterway. This peninsula is in turn divided by the Banana River. Merritt Island includes the most northerly, undivided part of the peninsula, and the westerly section that lies between the two rivers.
Of this area the most northerly part is the National Wildlife Refuge, the next section south is taken up by the Kennedy Space Center and the associated Cape Canaveral Air Force Station; its coast forms Cape Canaveral, though the town of Cape Canaveral is not on the island but on the larger barrier island to the south. The southernmost section, which forms a forked peninsula between the Indian River and the Banana River, is largely private land, and includes the site of the town.
To its south and east, the island is linked by bridges and causeways to the more substantial barrier island that runs southwards from the towns of Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach. To its west, the island connects to the mainland by a series of causeways, to Titusville, Cocoa and Rockledge. Nearby this fantastic community is the Kennedy Space Center, Children's Community Theater, Hubert Humphry Park and the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.
Merritt Island has it all, from the town that has grown to over 30,000 people to the refuge and sanctuary, with a true island feel, and a beach in your front or back yard! With a sense of mystery and magic about it, Merritt Island is truly a paradise.