Long Beach Island

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Barnegat Lighthouse on the north tip of Long Beach Island

Position of Long Beach Island (pink) relative to Ocean County

Long Beach Island is a barrier island and summer colony along the Atlantic Ocean coast of Ocean County, New Jersey in the United States. It is about 18 miles (29 kilometers) long and half a mile wide at its widest point. The island has been continuously settled since 1690. As of the United States Census, 2000, a total of 8,556 people in six separate municipalities called Long Beach Island home on a year-round basis. The population in these communities swell significantly with part-time residents and tourists during the summer.

Known as LBI in New Jersey, the island's close knit communities are largely affluent and contain many vacation homes for wealthy New Yorkers, Philadelphians, Connecticut residents, and suburban New Jerseyites that they themselves either summer in or rent out. In the larger, south end cities of Beach Haven and Ship Bottom, year-round residents and businesses in operation are far more common. The island is also known as a base for many long-range recreational fishing and charter boats, whose trips can range from 10-100 miles from one of the island's three inlets (at Barnegat Bay, in the north, and Beach Haven and Little Egg Harbor in the south.)

Long Beach Island is known to attract more of a family-oriented crowd and deviates from the crazy beach vacation one might experience in other beach towns such as Belmar and Seaside Heights.

The historic Barnegat Lighthouse is located in Barnegat Lighthouse State Park at the northern tip of the island along the Barnegat Inlet.

Long Beach Island is also famous for housing the original Ron Jon Surf Shop in Ship Bottom, as well as the landmark, Lucielle's Oh Fudge! Candies. Lucielle's has a giant salt water taffy out front, a candy which was first created in nearby Atlantic City.

Road access to Long Beach Island is available via Route 72, which crosses Manahawkin Bay via the Dorland J. Henderson Memorial Bridge, which is famous for its "String of Pearls", a row of lights mounted on the railings lining the entire bridge. The bridge is scheduled to be expanded and a new span will be added in a few years.

The island was rocked by storms in 1992, 1923, and most famously, in 1962, which almost destroyed the island. During the March 1962 storm, in the Harvey Cedars section of the island, a new Inlet was temporarily formed and several homes and shops floated away or were destroyed.

The island is divided by the Route 72 Causeway (erected after the 1962 storm). This new bridge replaced a low-level, two-lane automobile bridge that was formerly a railroad crossing. A somewhat infamous 1970's article in Philadelphia Magazine quipped that the "haves turn right and the have mores turn left." Nominally accurate, the "down island" community of Beach Haven features historic and elegant Victorian homes that have survived the many storms. The south end of the island contains significantly more commercial zoning, which generally decreases as you travel north.

The north end of the island includes the communities (north to south) of Barnegat Light, High Bar Harbor, Loveladies, Harvey Cedars, North Beach, and Surf City.

The community of Loveladies was mostly developed after the 1962 storm. The developers attracted a large number of psychiatrists and was referred to as "couch cove." The Loveladies section of LBI is made up of an array of large scale homes which attract a great deal of attention from island visitors. Loveladies is also home to the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences.

The movie Jaws is based on the Peter Benchley book of the same name, which is based on the Jersey Shore Shark Attacks of 1916, a real life series of shark attacks which began on Long Beach Island.