Boynton Beach is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. It is situated about 57 miles (92 km) north of Miami. The 2020 census recorded a population of 80,380. Boynton Beach is located in the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to 6,138,333 people at the 2020 census. The city is named after Nathan Boynton, a Civil War major and Michigan politician who became one of the first settlers in the area in 1895. Boynton Beach is located north of Delray Beach, south of Hypoluxo and Lantana, and east of Golf, while the municipalities of Briny Breezes, Gulf Stream, Manalapan, and Ocean Ridge are situated to the east across the Intracoastal Waterway.
Native Americans inhabited modern-day Boynton Beach thousands of years ago, with a burial mound west of the city including artifacts dating as far back as roughly 150 BCE. The first non-indigenous settlers, Dexter Hubel and his family, arrived in 1877. Major Boynton moved to present-day Boynton Beach in 1895, building the Boynton Hotel and bringing contingents from Michigan, many of whom practiced farming or established businesses in the vicinity of Ocean Avenue. Byrd and Fred Dewey filed the original plat for the Town of Boynton in 1898, although official incorporation did not occur until 1920. The oceanfront section of Boynton Beach split off in 1931 and became Ocean Ridge in 1939. Boynton Beach's population grew rapidly in the first few decades following World War II, with more than a three-fold increase in the 1950s, while development of the city expanded westward, particularly in the 1980s.
Today, Boynton Beach is the third-most populous municipality in Palm Beach County, behind only West Palm Beach and Boca Raton. The area along Congress Avenue south of Gateway Boulevard includes a large concentration of restaurants and retail stores at the Boynton Beach Mall, the Boynton Town Center, and Renaissance Commons. Boynton Beach also has several arts and culture facilities, such as the Boynton Woman's Club and Schoolhouse Children's Museum & Learning Center.
