Longport Neighborhoods: Bay Side, Ocean Side, and a Vanished South End
Longport is a borough in Atlantic County, New Jersey, sitting on the southwest corner of Absecon Island, an 8.1-mile barrier island it shares with Margate City, Ventnor City, and Atlantic City. Per Wikipedia, Longport's total area is just 1.56 square miles — only 0.40 square miles of land against 1.16 square miles of water, meaning the borough is roughly 74.49% water today, among the highest water-to-land ratios of any market covered on this site. With that little land, Longport does not have a confirmed list of officially named residential neighborhoods or subdivisions, and this page does not invent one. Instead, what genuinely organizes the borough is geography: which blocks sit closer to the bay side versus the ocean side, how close a given address is to the Margate City line at Longport's northern edge, and a real, dated piece of history — between 1900 and 1916, storms eroded 180 acres comprising ten numbered streets off the barrier island's southern end, a loss that still shapes the compact, water-dominant footprint residents and visitors see today.
Why This Page Talks About Geography, Not Named Subdivisions
Some beach towns on this site have long-established, distinctly named neighborhoods, and those pages name them directly. The research behind this page did not turn up a confirmed list of official named residential subdivisions within Longport, and inventing one to make this page look more specific would be guessing dressed up as research — that is not how this page works.
What follows instead is the real, confirmed geography and history that actually organizes a borough this small: its position on Absecon Island's southwest corner, its bay-side and ocean-side blocks within a 0.40-square-mile land area, its border with Margate City, and the documented 1900-1916 erosion event that permanently reshaped its southern end. For parcel-specific questions, including which blocks carry which informal local name, a local Longport real estate agent working the market regularly is the right source, and this page says so directly rather than pretending otherwise.
A Sliver of Land at the Southwest Corner of Absecon Island
Longport occupies the southwest tip of Absecon Island, an 8.1-mile barrier island it shares with Atlantic City, Ventnor City, and Margate City, moving down the island in that order toward Longport at the southern end. Per Wikipedia, 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, putting Longport at roughly 74.49% water by area, among the highest water-to-land ratios of any market on this site.
That combination of a tiny land footprint and a large surrounding bay means Longport's real estate geography reads less like a set of named neighborhoods and more like two simple orientations: ocean-side blocks facing the Atlantic, and bay-side blocks facing the back bays toward the mainland, with the borough's entire built footprint squeezed onto a narrow strip of barrier island between the two. Longport's own line with Margate City, its northern neighbor on the same island, is the other geographic reference point that matters for a specific address, and it is worth confirming directly which side of that border a given property sits on.
The 1900-1916 Erosion That Reshaped Longport's South End
Longport's compact footprint today is not an accident of original platting — it is partly the result of real, documented storm erosion. Per Wikipedia, between 1900 and 1916, a series of storms eroded 180 acres comprising ten numbered streets on the southern end of the barrier island, significantly reshaping Longport's geography. This research did not confirm the precise boundaries or original names of those ten lost streets, and this page does not invent them.
What can be stated with confidence is the scale and outcome: a documented loss of platted, numbered streets to the sea over roughly a sixteen-year span, not merely gradual beach narrowing, and a resulting borough whose present-day water-dominant footprint is a direct legacy of that historical loss. Anyone piecing together exactly where those ten streets once ran should treat that as a historical research question for local sources and archives, not something this page can responsibly reconstruct.
Longport's Origins: James Long, M. Simpson McCullough, and an 1898 Borough
Longport's naming and founding are well documented. James Long purchased property in the area in 1857; M. Simpson McCullough later acquired and developed the area in 1882, naming it "Longport" in Long's honor, per Wikipedia. The borough was formally incorporated on March 7, 1898, by act of the New Jersey Legislature, carved out of Egg Harbor Township.
That Egg Harbor Township connection resurfaced in an unrelated way roughly a century later: beginning around 2014, owners in Seaview Harbor, a 92-home waterfront enclave still part of Egg Harbor Township on the mainland side of the bay, spent nearly a decade fighting in court to secede from Egg Harbor Township and join Longport instead, citing a documented property-tax differential. Egg Harbor Township's Township Committee denied the petition in 2016; a trial judge ruled against secession in February 2020; the New Jersey Appellate Division affirmed that ruling in a 48-page opinion in December 2021; and the New Jersey Supreme Court denied further appeal shortly after, ending the litigation with Seaview Harbor remaining part of Egg Harbor Township. It is a real, fully resolved case that says nothing about Longport's own internal geography, but it is part of the borough's documented recent history.
What to Confirm With a Local Agent
Because this page intentionally does not assert a list of named subdivisions, the practical questions that matter for a specific property — how close a given address sits to the ocean side versus the bay side, exactly how far it is from the Margate City line, current zoning, and how a parcel relates to the borough's flood zones given its water-dominant footprint — are exactly the kind of parcel-level detail a local Longport real estate agent working the market regularly can confirm, and that this research pass does not invent.
Also confirm current median home prices, active listing counts, and current Atlantic County or Borough of Longport property tax figures directly with a local agent, Atlantic County government, and the Borough of Longport's own finance office. Longport ranked 22nd among New Jersey's most expensive ZIP codes in 2018, with a median home sale price of $767,500 in 2017 and an average property tax bill of $10,872 in 2018 — the highest in Atlantic County that year — but those are dated, historical figures, not current ones, and should not be treated as such. New Jersey has its own state sales tax and its own property-tax structure, genuinely different from the no-sales-tax framework used in other markets this site covers, and this page does not assume otherwise. Confirm current New Jersey state sales tax rules and current flood zone designations directly with the State of New Jersey and FEMA's Flood Map Service Center. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or financial advice.
Ready to talk to a local Longport agent?
Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Longport's location on the southwest corner of Absecon Island in Atlantic County, New Jersey, shared with Margate City, Ventnor City, and Atlantic City; its total area of 1.56 square miles (0.40 sq mi land, 1.16 sq mi water, roughly 74.49% water); the 1900-1916 storm erosion of 180 acres comprising ten numbered streets on the barrier island's southern end; the 1857 land purchase by James Long, the 1882 development and naming by M. Simpson McCullough, and the March 7, 1898 incorporation from Egg Harbor Township; and the 2018 figures placing Longport 22nd among New Jersey's most expensive ZIP codes, with a 2017 median home sale price of $767,500 and a 2018 average property tax bill of $10,872, are sourced from Wikipedia's Longport, New Jersey entry. The Seaview Harbor secession litigation (2014-2022) — including Egg Harbor Township's 2016 denial, the February 2020 trial court ruling, the December 2021 New Jersey Appellate Division opinion, and the New Jersey Supreme Court's subsequent denial of further appeal — is sourced from The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Press of Atlantic City, and DownBeach's coverage. No confirmed list of official named residential subdivisions for Longport, no precise boundaries or names for the ten streets lost to 1900-1916 erosion, and no current (2026) population, median home price, active listing count, or current tax figure beyond the dated 2017-2018 figures cited above was found this research pass, and none is invented here. Confirm parcel-specific location details, informal area names, zoning, current listing activity, and current tax figures directly with a local Longport real estate agent, Atlantic County government, the Borough of Longport, and FEMA's Flood Map Service Center. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or financial advice.