Cortez is a census-designated place in Manatee County, Florida, occupying a small peninsula on Sarasota Bay where the Cortez Bridge connects the mainland to Anna Maria Island. It was founded in the 1880s by families who migrated from North Carolina — the Guthries, Taylors, and Fulfords among them — and settled a point originally known as Hunter's Point. From that beginning, Cortez grew into a working commercial fishing village, and it remains one of the last authentic fishing communities on Florida's Gulf Coast. Its population was 4,121 at the 2020 census. Unlike the resort development that surrounds it, Cortez has deliberately preserved its Old Florida character. The Cortez Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995, and the village still holds a collection of historic cottages, fish houses, and a working waterfront where commercial boats come and go. The Florida Maritime Museum, housed in a 1912 brick schoolhouse, documents the area's fishing and maritime heritage, while the Cortez Village Historical Society keeps the community's history alive. Cortez is best known to visitors for its waterfront seafood houses — Star Fish Company, Swordfish Grill, Cortez Kitchen, and Tide Tables among them — where diners eat dockside while watching the day's catch arrive. The village's annual Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival celebrates the industry that built the community. For residents, Cortez offers a rare combination: a quiet, historic fishing neighborhood with water views and instant access to Anna Maria Island's Gulf beaches across the bridge, plus the shops and services of Bradenton a short drive inland. It is a place defined by salt air, working boats, and a community identity rooted in more than a century of life on the water.