Welcome to the Public Beach and Waterfront Access Site On-line Guide!

This page is best viewed with 800x600 or greater resolution and with Netscape 4.0 or higher or Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher.

This on-line guide will allow you to search the Division of Coastal Management's (DCM) GIS database of coastal public access sites. When you go to the access site page, you will first see a map of the 20 coastal counties.

• You can click a county on the map or select a particular county or town from the list boxes to zoom to that location. 

• Once you've zoomed in to a particular area, you can zoom or pan around the map, or use the identify or search features. 

• The identify feature will allow you to click on a particular access site to see more detailed information about that site.

• Use identify to see written directions to the access site, as well as a picture of that site (or a similar site). Pictures are not currently available for all sites, so you may only see a picture of a similar site.

This access site database includes only those sites for which DCM provided funding. There may be other locally funded public access sites that use the DCM sign that are not shown in our data. For some background information on the beach and waterfront access program click here.

Types of access sites
The public access sites presented here are grouped into four main types: regional, neighborhood, local, and urban waterfront.

Regional sites are generally the largest of the access sites. There are exceptions, but usually these sites have ample parking, and they often have other facilities such as restrooms, showers, and picnic tables.

Neighborhood sites generally have fewer parking spaces than regional sites and often do not have facilities such as showers or restrooms. There are exceptions however.

Local access sites often are simply dune crossovers with little or no associated parking and no facilities.

Urban waterfront sites are generally located on estuarine waters in urbanized areas. They vary greatly in the amount of parking and facilities provided.

All of the access sites here are in DCM's GIS database. Both the location and attribute information were collected by DCM using GPS receivers. The latest update of these data was performed in October, 1998. The initial data were collected in 1996. 

• Questions? Comments? Please e- mail DCM to report any errors or inconsistencies in these data or to provide other comments. Note that when using the identify feature one of the attributes you will see is a Site ID number. If you are commenting about a specific site, please include this ID number.

Go to the Access Sites.

Here's some pictures of access site signs