Fenwick Island (Delaware–Maryland)

Fenwick Island Lighthouse is a lighthouse in Delaware, United States, on the Delaware/Maryland state line. The structure dates back to 1858 making it the oldest lighthouse in the state of Delaware.

Fenwick Island is a coastal resort town in Sussex County, Delaware, United States. According to 2020 census figures, the population of the town is 355, a 2.6% decrease over the last decade. It is part of the Salisbury, Maryland–Delaware Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town is located on Fenwick Island, a barrier spit. Fenwick Island and its neighbors to the north, Bethany Beach and South Bethany, are popularly known as "The Quiet Resorts." This is in contrast to the wild atmosphere of Dewey Beach and the cosmopolitan bustle of Rehoboth Beach. Fenwick Island, however, is somewhat less "quiet" than "the Bethanies" because it is immediately across the state line from Ocean City, Maryland, which has a reputation as a lively vacation resort.Named after Thomas Fenwick, a planter from England who settled in Maryland, Fenwick Island lay in the part of Delaware which Lord Baltimore and his heirs claimed during the Penn–Baltimore border dispute. Contrary to popular belief, the town does not sit on a barrier island but on a narrow peninsula which resembles a barrier island (unless one considers a narrow man-made boat canal well inland that connects White Creek to Little Assawoman Bay). The narrow strip of land separates the Atlantic Ocean from Little Assawoman Bay. Ocean City, Maryland, occupies the southern tip of this peninsula.Local legend states that Cedar Island in Little Assawoman Bay was a spot for pirates to bury treasure. Regardless of the truth of the legend, the Delaware coastal area was well known as a place for pirates to hide from the law. Cedar Island has just about washed under the bay, as Seal Island did around 2010.The town was an unincorporated area between South Bethany and Ocean City, Maryland, until July 1953, when the Delaware General Assembly passed an act to incorporate the town. Local sentiment demanded incorporation to prevent the relentless high-rise development of Ocean City from creeping north into Fenwick Island. Fenwick Island's population was 48 in 1960.

Little Assawoman Bay is a body of water in Sussex County, Delaware. It is connected from Assawoman Bay to the south by a narrow canal known locally as "The Ditch," and is connected to Indian River Bay to the north by the Assawoman Canal. It is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Fenwick Island barrier spit.

Fenwick Island State Park is a 344-acre (139 ha) Delaware state park between Ocean City, Maryland and South Bethany, Delaware in Sussex County, Delaware, US. Fenwick Island State Park is open for year-round recreation from 8:00 am until sunset. Originally part of Delaware Seashore State Park, it was established in 1966 and renamed in 1981. The park is located on Fenwick Island, a narrow strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean and Little Assawoman Bay. It is largely undeveloped in comparison to the beach communities that surround it.

Assawoman Bay (locally ), once called Assawoman Sound, is a lagoon that is located between Ocean City, Maryland and mainland Delmarva. The bay is located on the northern end of the city, and the bay on the southern end is called the Isle of Wight Bay. Another bay called Little Assawoman Bay extends into southern Delaware, and is geologically separated from the main estuaries, by a narrow strait locally referred to as "The Ditch" which crosses the Transpeninsular Line. The larger bay is sometimes called "Big Assawoman Bay", to distinguish it from the smaller bay, though this is often meant to be a tongue-in-cheek rendering of the name.

Zigzag Swamp, is a swamp located in Sussex County, in the U.S. state of Delaware.

Assawoman Wildlife Area is a state wildlife area located in Sussex County, Delaware located near Frankfort, Delaware and Little Assawoman Bay. It is made up of three large tracts of land that total 3,100 acres (1,300 ha) that were originally former farms that were lost due to the Great Depression, and managed by the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC). The wildlife areas name came from the nearby Little Assawoman Bay which was originally named Assateague, an Algonkian word meaning "stream or inlet in the middle" before it was changed to another Algonkian name which means "midway fishing stream."In 2019, fifty-two areas were purchased alongside the Piney Point tract of the wildlife area by a joint effort by the Center for the Inland Bays and the DNREC's program the Delaware Open Space Program. The additional land expanded the wildlife area by 11% and another joint program between the Center for the Inland Bays and the Division of Fish and Wildlife planted 16,600 trees on sixteen of the fifty-two areas. The reforestation effort by the state was done to protect and support breeding populations of local animals such as the eastern box turtle and migratory species like the wood thrush, and to improve water quality in the Indian River. Additional conservation efforts were made by creating a living shoreline with salt marsh grasses to create a 13,000 sq ft (1,200 m2) separation between a freshwater pond and a saltwater tributary. In 2020, it was reported that the Delmarva fox squirrel would be transplanted into the wildlife area from Dorchester County, Maryland in an effort to increase the population in Delaware. Prior to this transplant the squirrel was only seen in the Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge and the Naticoke Wildlife Area.

South Bethany is an incorporated town in Sussex County, Delaware, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the town is 449, a decrease of 8.7% over the previous decade. It is part of the Salisbury, Maryland-Delaware Metropolitan Statistical Area. South Bethany is popularly considered one of "The Quiet Resorts", along with its direct neighbor to the north, Bethany Beach, and its neighbor to the south, Fenwick Island. This is in contradistinction to the crowded atmosphere of the more popular Dewey Beach and the cosmopolitan bustle of nearby Rehoboth Beach. Assisting South Bethany's reputation as a "quiet" place is the presence of Delaware Seashore State Park – a six-mile-long barrier island providing a substantial buffer from Dewey Beach's noise – to the north of Bethany Beach, as well as the relative quiet provided by a large unincorporated area of private condominiums and multimillion-dollar beach homes between the park and Bethany Beach. To the south, South Bethany is insulated from busy Ocean City, Maryland, by Fenwick Island State Park and Fenwick Island itself.Unlike Bethany Beach and neighboring Fenwick Island, South Bethany is almost exclusively residential. It refers to itself as "The Best Little Beach in Delaware."

Ocean City, officially the Town of Ocean City, is an Atlantic resort town in Worcester County, Maryland, along the East Coast of the United States. The population was 6,844 at the 2020 U.S. census, although during summer weekends the city hosts between 320,000 and 345,000 vacationers and up to eight million visitors annually. During the summer, Ocean City becomes the second most populated municipality in Maryland, after Baltimore. It is part of the Salisbury metropolitan area as defined by the United States Census Bureau.

The Ocean City Police Department (OCPD) is a full-time-service law enforcement agency providing police services to a population of 7,031 people within 36.4 square miles (94 km2) of the municipality of Ocean City, MD.

The Assawoman Bay Bridge crosses the Assawoman Bay in Ocean City, Maryland. The bridge carries Maryland Route 90, a freeway, into northern Ocean City, Maryland. The bridge consists of two lanes and is undivided, but it is heavily travelled. In the summer, it is usually congested with traffic heading into and out of Ocean City, especially on Fridays and Sundays. It ends in North Ocean City at Maryland Route 528 (Coastal Highway) and 62nd Street.

Isle of Wight is an island in Worcester County, Maryland. The island is in Isle of Wight Bay at the mouth of St. Martin River just west of Ocean City on Fenwick Island in eastern Maryland. The Ocean City Expressway crosses the island between the mainland and Fenwick Island.The island is designated by the state of Maryland as a Wildlife Management Area.