Flood Zones in Longport, New Jersey: What a 74% Water Borough Should Know Before Checking FEMA
Longport is a borough in Atlantic County, New Jersey, sitting on the southwest corner of Absecon Island, the 8.1-mile barrier island it shares with Margate City, Ventnor City, and Atlantic City. Per Wikipedia's own entry for the borough, Longport's total area is just 1.56 square miles, and only 0.40 of those square miles are land. The other 1.16 square miles are water, meaning the borough is roughly 74.49 percent aquatic by area, one of the highest water-to-land ratios of any town on the Jersey Shore. That is not a modern statistic invented for marketing; it reflects real history. Between 1900 and 1916, a series of storms eroded 180 acres of the barrier island's southern end, permanently taking ten platted, numbered streets with them. This page does not state a current FEMA flood zone designation for any individual Longport parcel, and it does not state a current flood-insurance premium for this borough, because neither has been confirmed at the parcel level and both are determined address by address by FEMA's own mapping. What it does do is lay out what is actually documented about Longport's geography and its erosion history, explain in plain terms how FEMA's flood-zone system works, and point toward exactly where a specific address can be checked. None of this is legal, insurance, or engineering advice. For a question tied to a specific property, talk to a licensed New Jersey insurance agent, a real estate attorney, and the relevant local and federal agencies named below.
A Borough That Is Nearly Three-Quarters Water
Longport sits at the southwest tip of Absecon Island, an 8.1-mile barrier island it shares with Margate City, Ventnor City, and Atlantic City to the north. Per Wikipedia's own entry, the borough's total area is 1.56 square miles, but only 0.40 square miles of that is land. The remaining 1.16 square miles is water, back bays, thoroughfares, and marsh, putting Longport at roughly 74.49 percent aquatic by area. That is an unusual ratio even among Jersey Shore barrier-island towns, and it is worth sitting with rather than rounding away: a borough where land makes up barely a quarter of the total footprint is, by definition, a borough where water is never far from any given address, whether that water is the Atlantic Ocean to the east or the back bays and thoroughfares of the mainland side.
That ratio did not appear overnight. Longport was incorporated on March 7, 1898, carved from Egg Harbor Township, and named for James Long, who had purchased property in the area in 1857, with M. Simpson McCullough later acquiring and developing the area in 1882. Within a couple of decades of incorporation, the borough's southern geography was already being reshaped by the Atlantic itself, a history the next section covers directly.
The 1900-1916 Storms: Ten Numbered Streets Lost to the Sea
Per Wikipedia's own entry for the borough, storms between 1900 and 1916 eroded 180 acres of Longport's barrier island, taking with them ten numbered streets on the island's southern end. This was not a gradual, cosmetic narrowing of a beach; it was the permanent loss of platted, buildable street grid to the ocean, over roughly a decade and a half, at the same southern end of Absecon Island where Longport still sits today. The precise historical boundaries of those ten streets, and their original names beyond the "numbered streets" description Wikipedia gives, are not confirmed in the research behind this page, and none is invented here.
What is documented is the throughline: a barrier-island borough that lost 180 acres and ten numbered streets to storm erosion in the early twentieth century is, in the twenty-first century, a borough that is 74.49 percent water. Those two facts are connected, not coincidental, and they are the honest starting point for any conversation about flood risk in Longport, a starting point grounded in a real, dated, historical event rather than a guess about which zone any one parcel sits in today.
Why This Page Does Not Name a Zone or a Premium
Research behind this page did not turn up a confirmed, parcel-specific FEMA flood zone designation for Longport, and none is invented here. It would be easy to assume that a borough sitting at the southwest tip of a barrier island, with a documented history of losing land to storm erosion and a footprint that is nearly three-quarters water today, is uniformly in a high-risk flood zone. But that assumption is exactly what this page declines to make: FEMA zone boundaries are drawn block by block and sometimes lot by lot, and an oceanfront home, a bayfront home along one of Longport's back-bay thoroughfares, and a home on an interior block can carry genuinely different designations within a borough whose entire land area is only 0.40 square miles.
The same caution applies to cost. No current flood-insurance premium figure for Longport is stated here, because premiums are set per policy, driven by the specific zone, base flood elevation, structure elevation, and coverage amount for that address, not by a borough-wide average. Longport's average property tax bill reached $10,872 in 2018, the highest in Atlantic County that year, and its median home sale price was $767,500 in 2017, ranking 22nd among New Jersey's most expensive ZIP codes at the time, per Wikipedia. Those are historical figures tied to specific years, not current rates, and neither substitutes for an actual flood-insurance quote tied to a specific parcel.
How FEMA Flood Zones Actually Work
FEMA maps flood risk through Flood Insurance Rate Maps, and the resulting zone letters describe a category of risk, not a guarantee. In general terms, zones starting with the letter V (sometimes shown as VE) mark coastal areas subject to wave action and storm surge; zones starting with A (including AE) mark areas subject to a 1-percent-annual-chance flood, commonly called the 100-year floodplain; and zone X marks areas outside that mapped high-risk floodplain, though X is not a claim of zero flood risk. Each zone can carry a different federal flood-insurance requirement tied to a federally backed mortgage, and a different base flood elevation, the height to which a structure is expected to be built or elevated to meet current standards.
On a borough this water-dominant, with the Atlantic Ocean on one side and back-bay thoroughfares and marsh on the other, across a land area of just 0.40 square miles, it is entirely normal for these zones to shift within a short walk, from an ocean-facing block, to an interior block, to a bay-facing block along the water. That variation is exactly why a single borough-wide flood zone statement would misrepresent what FEMA's own maps actually show, and exactly why this page stops at explaining the system rather than assigning a letter to any one address.
What This Page Does Not Confirm
No current FEMA flood-zone designation for any specific Longport parcel was confirmed in the research behind this page, and none is invented here. No current flood-insurance premium figure for this borough was confirmed, and none is stated. No current storm-damage event or erosion event specific to Longport for 2025 or 2026 was confirmed either, and none is claimed, though the borough did install seven educational dune-protection signs along beach crossovers in July 2025, after officials observed beachgoers standing on protective dunes, including during July 4th fireworks. Zoning Officer Bruce Funk was quoted saying, "People don't understand how important the dunes are. The diversity of wildlife there is amazing," calling the dunes "more than just a pile of sand." The $5,000 initiative was funded through a CAFRA Trust Fund donation, with signs costing roughly $700 each and each carrying a QR code linking to a dedicated "Our Dunes" website, per DownBeach's July 2025 coverage. That is a real, current, small-scale civic acknowledgment that dune protection matters here, not a substitute for a parcel-specific flood zone determination.
No current Longport or Atlantic County property tax rate, current New Jersey state sales tax rate, current median home price, or current active-listing count was confirmed, beyond the 2018 average property tax bill of $10,872 and the 2017 median home sale price of $767,500 cited above, and the 2020 census population figure of 893, essentially flat from 895 in 2010. New Jersey has its own state sales tax and its own property-tax structure, genuinely different from a no-sales-tax state, and this page does not assume any specific current rate applies. None of these gaps should be read as reassurance about flood risk one way or the other; they are stated directly so a reader knows exactly what this page establishes, the documented geography and erosion history behind Longport's flood exposure and a plain-terms explanation of how FEMA's zone mapping works, and what it does not: a specific zone letter, a specific premium, or a specific tax figure for any one address.
Where to Check a Specific Longport Address
Start with FEMA's own Flood Map Service Center at msc.fema.gov, where an address search returns the currently effective Flood Insurance Rate Map panel for that parcel and a printable FIRMette showing the mapped zone and base flood elevation. Given Longport's layout at the southwest tip of Absecon Island, with the Atlantic on one side and back-bay thoroughfares and marsh on the other across a land area of just 0.40 square miles, it is worth checking whether a given address sits on an ocean-facing block, an interior block, or a bay-facing block near the water, since the source and severity of flood exposure can differ from one block to the next in a borough this compact and this water-dominant.
From there, cross-check against Atlantic County's floodplain management resources and the Borough of Longport's own construction office, since local floodplain ordinances can apply on top of the federal zone designation and can affect what can be built, elevated, or rebuilt on a given lot. For a formal determination, an elevation certificate, or an actual insurance quote rather than a general estimate, work with a New Jersey-licensed flood insurance agent, and for any legal question tied to a purchase, a New Jersey-licensed real estate attorney, who can pull the parcel's actual zone and advise on that specific address.
Ready to talk to a local Longport agent?
Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Longport's location in Atlantic County, New Jersey, at the southwest corner of Absecon Island (an 8.1-mile barrier island shared with Margate City, Ventnor City, and Atlantic City), its 1.56-square-mile total area (0.40 sq mi land, 1.16 sq mi water, roughly 74.49 percent aquatic), its 1898 incorporation carved from Egg Harbor Township, the 1900-1916 storm erosion of 180 acres comprising ten numbered streets on the barrier island's southern end, its 2020 census population of 893 (down 0.2 percent from 895 in 2010), its 2018 average property tax bill of $10,872 (the highest in Atlantic County that year), and its 2017 median home sale price of $767,500 (22nd among New Jersey's most expensive ZIP codes in 2018) are sourced from Wikipedia's own Longport, New Jersey entry. The July 2025 installation of seven educational dune-protection signs, the $5,000 CAFRA Trust Fund-funded initiative, the roughly $700 per-sign installation cost, the "Our Dunes" QR-code website, and the quotation from Zoning Officer Bruce Funk are sourced from DownBeach's own July 2025 coverage. The general description of FEMA flood-zone categories (V/VE, A/AE, and X) reflects FEMA's own published, general definitions of those zone types and is not a claim about any specific Longport parcel's actual mapped zone. No current FEMA flood-zone designation for any specific Longport parcel, no current flood-insurance premium figure, no current Longport or Atlantic County property tax rate, no current New Jersey state sales tax rate, and no current median home price or active-listing count specific to Longport was confirmed via primary-source research this pass, and none is invented here. Confirm current flood-zone status, base flood elevation, and insurance requirements for any specific address directly through FEMA's Flood Map Service Center (msc.fema.gov), Atlantic County's floodplain management resources, the Borough of Longport's construction office, and a licensed New Jersey flood insurance agent, and consult a licensed New Jersey real estate attorney for any legal question tied to a purchase, before making a purchase decision. Nothing on this page is legal, insurance, engineering, or financial advice.