Cape Canaveral, Fla. ? To the untrained eye, this sleepy seaside town seems so ordinary. The kind of place where spunky retirees pedal their beach cruisers down avenues named for obscure presidents and where children swat tennis balls at day camp, serenaded by afternoon cicadas.

Pretty. Tidy. Dull.

Lawyer Tony Hernandez III says more than 200 divorces are filed monthly in Brevard County, Fla., home of Cape Canaveral, where one in five adults is divorced. Hernandez's intern, Matt Gunter, is at left.

But there is something more (and less) to this town, and now it’s as official as the Census Bureau gets: Cape Canaveral is Splitsville, USA. The D-I-V-O-R-C-E capital of the United States.

There might not be a Heartbreak Hotel here, but there is an apartment complex called Castaway Villas.

According to the 2000 census, 22 percent of the population 15 years old or older is divorced and not remarried. (Throw in those who checked the box for “separated,” and it’s 25.67 percent.) Now, Cape Canaveral might become known for something other than its proximity to the John F. Kennedy Space Center.

The runners-up, for places with a population over 5,000?

The silver medal goes to Marina del Rey (20.71 percent), the yachty, party-by-the-pool playground in Los Angeles, a loner-male kind of hangout that gives off a distinct ’70s swinger musk as memorable as a whiff of Brut cologne.

“If you go to the Marina, you’re going to be hit on by a bunch of rugheads,” said Renee Piane, president of Love Works, a dating consultant company, reflecting the popular conviction in Los Angeles that the Marina is full of divorced dads too old for their Miatas.

Third place is Lincoln City (20.58 percent), on the mossy Oregon coast, and no one really knows why. Beats me, said the mayor. The weather?

Back on the Eastern Seaboard, Cape Canaveralites did not take lightly the news that their city (population 8,829) is Divorce Central.

“That’s amazing,” said Sandy Konkel, a mental health counselor at the Family Health and Wellness Center here, which also offers yoga classes. “I’m sure our local paper doesn’t want to carry that news. Not good for the tourist industry and people moving down here.”

The town leaders certainly were not happy.

“It’s actually shocking to hear that’s what the census came out with,” said Buzz Petsos, mayor pro tem of Cape Canaveral by night and a facility manager for a major aerospace company by day. “I’m hoping that some of the counts they came up with were wrong or people checked the wrong box.”

But mayors are often the last to know.

Tony Hernandez III, the only divorce lawyer in Cape Canaveral, did not seem surprised by the news at all.

“We’re so behind on the divorce dockets that you get a divorce now and you won’t see a divorce judge until January or February of next year,” he said. “There’s such a backlog. It’s incredible.”

Hernandez said more than 200 divorces are filed every month in Brevard County, which includes Cape Canaveral.

Larry Holt, a fortyish and divorced Cape Canaveral resident, said he was not unhappy to hear he had plenty of company.

“Marriage is overrated,” said Holt, who said people could be divorced, unmarried, but in a loving live-in relationship. “Like me,” he said.

Some speculate that the town’s pretty setting might contribute to the breakups. “People say, ‘I would rather be single here than married to you,’ ” Hernandez said.