Part of a legal description of a boundary line of Dixie County, for instance, says it goes "southerly down the thread of the main stream of said Suwannee River to the Gulf of Mexico; thence along said Gulf of Mexico, including the waters of said gulf within the jurisdiction of the State of Florida, to the mouth of the Steinhatchee River."

At least 55 statutes include references to the Gulf of Mexico, while local-government ordinances also are tied to the traditional name