North Wildwood Neighborhoods: One Small City With a Renamed History
North Wildwood is a city in Cape May County, New Jersey, on Five Mile Beach, with a total area of just 2.49 square miles (1.73 square miles of land and 0.77 square miles of water), per Wikipedia. That is a genuinely small footprint, and no confirmed list of officially named residential neighborhoods or subdivisions within North Wildwood turned up in the research behind this page, so it does not invent one. What can be stated with confidence is a real structural fact that shapes how the city is understood today: North Wildwood was not founded under its current name. It began in 1885 as the Borough of Anglesea, was reincorporated as the Borough of North Wildwood in 1906, and became a City in 1917 — and in 2016, residents voted against reviving the original Anglesea name. This page walks through that history and through how North Wildwood's small size and identity relate to its immediate neighbors, rather than naming subdivisions this research did not confirm.
Why This Page Does Not List 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 North Wildwood, 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 organizing history that can be stated with confidence: North Wildwood's origin as the Borough of Anglesea in 1885, its renaming and reincorporation into the city it is today, its compact 2.49-square-mile footprint, and how it fits alongside its immediate neighbors along Five Mile Beach. For parcel-specific questions, including which streets or blocks carry which informal local name, a local North Wildwood real estate agent working the market regularly is the right source, and this page says so directly rather than pretending otherwise.
From Anglesea to North Wildwood
North Wildwood's most distinctive structural fact is not a neighborhood name — it is that the city itself was originally founded under an entirely different name. The Borough of Anglesea was incorporated on June 13, 1885, from portions of Middle Township, per Wikipedia. It was reincorporated as the Borough of North Wildwood in 1906, then reincorporated again as a City in 1917.
That history did not stay purely historical. In 2016, North Wildwood residents voted on a proposal to revert to the original Anglesea name and rejected it, with concerns cited over the confusion that would be created and the impact on commerce, per Wikipedia. That a rename was seriously proposed and voted down as recently as 2016 is a real, dated fact worth understanding before assuming North Wildwood's identity has always been fixed and uncontested — it has been actively debated within living memory.
A Small, 2.49-Square-Mile City
At 2.49 square miles total — 1.73 square miles of land and 0.77 square miles of water, per Wikipedia — North Wildwood is a compact city, sitting at the northern end of Five Mile Beach at the Hereford Inlet, where the still-operating Hereford Inlet Lighthouse (built 1874, moved 150 feet after storm damage in 1913-1914, restored in 1982) serves as the city's most visible historic landmark and a useful point of geographic orientation. This is not a spread-out town with far-flung, distinct residential pockets, but a small, tightly bounded city where the beachfront, the bayfront, and everything in between sit close together.
North Wildwood is also one of only five New Jersey municipalities that offer free public beach access with lifeguard monitoring, per Wikipedia — a genuine, distinct civic-identity fact rather than a marketing claim, and one that is worth understanding as part of the city's character alongside its compact size, separate from any specific neighborhood name.
North Wildwood vs. Wildwood and Wildwood Crest
North Wildwood is one of four separate municipalities that together make up "the Wildwoods" along Five Mile Beach: North Wildwood itself, Wildwood, Wildwood Crest, and West Wildwood. Each is its own incorporated city or borough with its own government, its own history, and — importantly for a buyer — its own separate tax and zoning jurisdiction, even though all four sit on the same barrier island and share a version of the "Wildwood" name.
Wildwood, immediately south of North Wildwood, is covered in its own dedicated section of this site and carries a Doo-Wop motel and boardwalk identity built from its own 1911 merger of two earlier communities. Wildwood Crest sits further south still and is also covered separately. North Wildwood's own story is different from both: a city that began under a different name entirely, occupies the smallest footprint of the three, and anchors the northern end of the island at the Hereford Inlet. A property described as being "in North Wildwood" should specifically mean within the 2.49-square-mile city of North Wildwood, not one of these adjacent but distinct communities — a distinction worth confirming directly, since the names are easy to blur together from the outside.
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 — what a given street or block is actually called locally, which municipality a parcel actually sits within among the Wildwoods, current zoning, and how close a given address sits to the beach versus the bay side of the island — are exactly the kind of parcel-level detail a local North Wildwood 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, current Cape May County or City of North Wildwood property tax figures, New Jersey state sales tax rules, and current flood zone designations directly with a local agent, Cape May County government, the City of North Wildwood's own finance office, and FEMA's Flood Map Service Center before relying on any of it for a purchase decision. New Jersey's tax structure, including its state sales tax, is genuinely different from the no-sales-tax framework used in other markets this site covers, and this page does not assume otherwise. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or financial advice.
Ready to talk to a local North Wildwood agent?
Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. North Wildwood's location on Five Mile Beach in Cape May County, New Jersey, its total area of 2.49 square miles (1.73 sq mi land, 0.77 sq mi water), its original 1885 incorporation as the Borough of Anglesea, its 1906 reincorporation as the Borough of North Wildwood, its 1917 reincorporation as a City, the 2016 vote against reverting to the Anglesea name, and its status as one of only five New Jersey municipalities offering free public beach access with lifeguard monitoring are sourced from Wikipedia's North Wildwood, New Jersey entry. The Hereford Inlet Lighthouse's 1874 construction, its 1913-1914 relocation after storm damage, and its 1982 community-petition restoration are sourced from Wikipedia's Hereford Inlet Lighthouse entry. Wildwood and Wildwood Crest are each separate incorporated municipalities that, together with North Wildwood and West Wildwood, make up "the Wildwoods," per Wikipedia's The Wildwoods entry; both are covered in their own dedicated sections of this site. No confirmed list of official named residential subdivisions for North Wildwood, current median home price, current active listing count, or current property tax figure 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 North Wildwood real estate agent, Cape May County government, the City of North Wildwood, and FEMA's Flood Map Service Center. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or financial advice.