Welcome to Longboat Key, a quiet, dreamy barrier island off Sarasota's west coast.  It's divided into two counties, the northern portion is in Manatee County and the southern portion is in Sarasota County.  The Gulf of Mexico runs  along  the west side of the key, with Sarasota Bay on the east coast.

LBK is a populated with retirees, vacationers, and part-time residents who own second homes here.  There are approximately 8,000 permanent residents which grows to approximately 20,000 during peak tourist season, January to April.

 Gulf of Mexico Drive  runs the length of the island, with ancillary boulevards branching off to residential neighborhoods. From some locations one can see both Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.  At other points the island widens and accommodates single family homes, cottages, condo-hotels and mid to high-rise condominiums, hotels, and sports clubs.

The nearby cities of Sarasota and Bradenton and the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport round out Longboat Key's varied list of geographic amenities

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 17.1 square miles (44.2 km²), of which, 4.9 square miles (12.7 km²) of it is land and 12.1 square miles (31.5 km²) of it (71.18%) is water.

Some Longboat Key residents are "snowbirds," who vacation on or own second homes on Longboat Key, and are present only during the winter months. Others are homesteaders, utilizing the various homestead exemptions provided to Florida citizens who own and occupy their principal residences within the state, as set forth under the Florida Constitution.

There are numerous restaurants on Longboat Key, including The Dry Dock, the Longboat Key Club Restaurant, Cafe On the Bay, Euphemia Haye, Harry's, The Bottle Shop, and The Old Salty Dog, Lazy Lobster, and the Chart House. There is one full-service grocery store, Publix, and pharmacies, located centrally on Bay Isles.

Most of the Gulf side of Longboat Key comprises public or private beaches.

Much of the land area of Longboat Key is occupied by either single family homes or high rise condominiums.  Most of the condominium associations co-own common elements which comprise pools, tennis courts, sites with water views and access to beaches.

Longboat Key is home to the Longboat Key Club, developed by aluminum tycoon Arthur Vining Davis' Arvida Corp.  The Longboat Key Club is open to both visiting tourists and club members, and features indoor and outdoor restaurants, pool, resort buildings, golf courses, tennis courts and easy access to an adjacent gulfside beach.

Almost the entire land area of Longboat Key is now occupied.

The remaining older, single houses are as much as 75 years old, annexed to comparatively small parcels,  an outgrowth of the 1/2 acre limitation on homeestead property area within municipalities as set forth in the Florida Constitution. In the last few years, these properties have been purchased by new owners who sought to and did demolish them in order build small, ornate homes worth much more, many being valued to amounts on the order of as much as a few million dollars, a peculiar outgrowth of the unlimited-in-value homestead exemption for principal residences from forced sale provided to homesteaders under the Florida Constitution.

The diverse mix of homes owned both singly and in condominium line the many cul-de-sacs and boulevards branching off main roads towards both the bay and the gulf, with the length of the island served by Gulf of Mexico Drive.

A perennial problem for Longboaters was water quantity and quality. Salinity and sedimentary factors threatened the availability of potable water to island residents, visitors, and businesses. This problem was alleviated sufficiently when the Governing Board of the Southwest Florida Water Management District approved a connection to Sarasota County's water supply, augmenting the existing connection to that of Manatee County

LBK  is served by two newspapers  published year-round, the Longboat Observer and the Longboat Key News.