Lakeland is a town in Polk County, Florida, east of Tampa, along the Interstate 4. The most western town in Polk County, it is part of the Tampa Bay Area. The town has a population of more than 110,516 people. In the 1870s European-American immigrants from South Carolina arrived in Lakeland. The town grew with a rail service in the 1880s, with the first freedmen railway workers arriving here in 1883. Lakeland's dominant feature is the many lakes in the area. Thirty-eight lakes are named, with a number of other unidentified water bodies, mainly water-filled phosphate mine pits.