Surf City Neighborhoods: What a Town That Renamed Itself Four Times Actually Tells Us
Surf City is one of the smallest boroughs on Long Beach Island (LBI) in Ocean County, New Jersey — just 1.32 square miles total, 0.74 square miles of land and 0.58 square miles of water. It does not have a modern roster of named subdivisions the way a larger town might, and this page is not going to invent one. What the research behind this page does confirm is something more unusual: the town spent decades searching for its own name before "Surf City" stuck. Before 1875 the area was informally known as "Great Swamp," and also as "Buzby's Place" after Hudson Buzby, an owner of the Mansion of Health boarding hotel. It was later called "Old Mansion," then incorporated as Long Beach City on September 19, 1894, carved out of Stafford Township, before finally becoming Surf City. That naming history, plus the borough's real oceanside-versus-bayside geography built into its 0.74/0.58 land-to-water split, is the sourced material this page works with. Where the research stops short of describing present-day neighborhood boundaries or block-by-block character, this page says so plainly rather than guessing.
Great Swamp, Buzby's Place, Old Mansion, Long Beach City: Four Names Before Surf City
Long before anyone called this stretch of Long Beach Island "Surf City," it did not have a settled name at all. Prior to 1875 the area was informally known as "Great Swamp," and it was also referred to as "Buzby's Place," a reference to Hudson Buzby, an owner of the Mansion of Health boarding hotel. At another point it was known as "Old Mansion." None of these were official municipal names — they were the kind of informal, shifting labels a small, sparsely settled barrier-island community picks up before it incorporates as anything at all.
The first real municipal name came on September 19, 1894, when the community was incorporated as Long Beach City, formed from portions of Stafford Township. That name did not last. The research behind this page finds two different accounts of what happened next, and presents both honestly rather than picking one: per one source, the US Postal Service rejected "Long Beach City" as a mail-routing name in 1894 because it was too easily confused with Long Branch, NJ, further up the Jersey Shore. Per another source (Wikipedia), it was the Borough Council itself that adopted a resolution renaming the town from Long Beach City to Surf City on May 26, 1899, explicitly to avoid confusion with other shore place names. It is possible the postal rejection happened around 1894 and the formal council renaming followed in 1899, but that exact sequence was not independently confirmed in this research pass — so both 1894 and 1899 appear here as they appear in the source material, not smoothed into a single date.
A Real Claim to the "Surf City" Name — Decades Before California
Whichever date is more precise, Surf City, NJ has carried an official, USPS-recognized name since somewhere around the turn of the twentieth century — more than 100 years, per a local-interest article. That matters because "Surf City" is not a name unique to New Jersey. California's Huntington Beach and Santa Cruz both began using the "Surf City" nickname only in the 1960s, and later fought their own public and legal dispute over the trademark "Surf City USA."
This page presents that as a real, reported claim of naming precedence for the New Jersey borough — not as an official, adjudicated legal victory. This research did not independently confirm any formal trademark ruling naming Surf City, NJ as "the original" in that California dispute. What is confirmed is the timeline: a New Jersey borough council resolution (or a postal rejection, per the other account) settled on "Surf City" decades before either California town claimed the name for itself.
The Real Split: Oceanside Long Beach Boulevard vs. Bayside Barnegat Bay
Set the naming history aside and Surf City's geography breaks along one clear, confirmed line: oceanside versus bayside, reflected directly in its 0.74 square miles of land against 0.58 square miles of water. On the oceanside, Long Beach Boulevard — County Route 607, the only through road in the borough, since no Interstate, US, or state highway serves Surf City directly — carries a roughly one-mile commercial strip. That strip includes small businesses like mini-golf, the Surf City 5&10 (in business for close to 70 years, per one source), and various food vendors. Two distinctive, closely spaced water towers stand as the most recognizable visual landmark along that commercial stretch.
On the bayside, Barnegat Bay is home to the Surf City Yacht Club, an informal group that had been meeting since 1894 to promote aquatic sports in the area before formally incorporating as a nonprofit on September 26, 1940. The club purchased its first property, lot 36, in 1937 for $200, later expanding with lots 34 and 35 in 1939. Today it runs junior and interclub racing fleets — Optimist, Sunfish, Laser, 420, and Windsurfing dinghies — plus senior fleets in Lightning, Snipe, and Mariner classes, and serves as a regular venue for the Snipe Atlantic Coast Championships. That is the real geographic contrast this research can document in Surf City: a commercial, boulevard-facing ocean side built around the water towers and the shopping strip, and a bay-facing side built around organized sailing and yacht-club racing, all within 1.32 square miles.
Bordering Long Beach Township, Ship Bottom, and Stafford Township
Surf City sits in southern Ocean County on Long Beach Island, immediately north of Ship Bottom and south of Long Beach Township, with its own municipal roots tracing back to land carved out of Stafford Township on the mainland side of Barnegat Bay. Those three neighbors — Long Beach Township, Ship Bottom, and Stafford Township — are the confirmed geographic context for a borough with no other through highway besides Long Beach Boulevard.
Ship Bottom, Surf City's immediate southern neighbor, is already covered elsewhere on this site around its own distinct history: a 1925 merger of five separate communities into one borough. That is Ship Bottom's story, not Surf City's, and it is worth being direct about the difference: Surf City was never a merger of multiple communities. It is a single town that kept changing its own name — Great Swamp, Buzby's Place, Old Mansion, Long Beach City, and finally Surf City — before settling into the identity it has held for well over a century.
What This Page Will Not Invent About Present-Day Neighborhoods
To be direct about the limits here: the research behind this page does not describe present-day neighborhood boundaries, block ranges, or named districts within Surf City beyond the oceanside/bayside split covered above. It confirms the town's sequence of historic names, the 1894 incorporation as Long Beach City and its renaming to Surf City (dated to 1894 by one source and 1899 by another), the Long Beach Boulevard commercial strip with its two water towers, and the Surf City Yacht Club's presence on Barnegat Bay. It does not confirm whether residents use informal neighborhood names for different parts of town today, which blocks sit closest to the ocean versus the bay in terms of walkability or drive time, or how current property values vary within Surf City's 1.32 square miles.
That gap is worth naming rather than filling with invented "neighborhood character" language. A local Surf City or wider-LBI real estate agent who works this specific borough is the right source for how residents actually talk about different parts of town today, and for current property values or rental demand within Surf City itself. This page sticks to what the research confirms: a tiny, oceanfront-and-bayfront borough with an unusually well-documented naming history and no invented modern subdivision map.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Surf City's total area (1.32 square miles: 0.74 land, 0.58 water) and its location in southern Ocean County on Long Beach Island — immediately north of Ship Bottom and south of Long Beach Township, with municipal roots in land carved from Stafford Township — are drawn from the research behind this page. The town's sequence of historic names — informally "Great Swamp" and "Buzby's Place" (after Hudson Buzby, an owner of the Mansion of Health boarding hotel) prior to 1875, then "Old Mansion," then incorporation as Long Beach City on September 19, 1894 — is documented in that research, as is the renaming to Surf City. Two accounts of that renaming are presented here rather than resolved into one: one source states the US Postal Service rejected "Long Beach City" in 1894 due to confusion with Long Branch, NJ, while Wikipedia states the Borough Council adopted a resolution renaming the town to Surf City on May 26, 1899, to avoid confusion with other Jersey Shore place names. The "Surf City USA" naming-precedence claim relative to Huntington Beach and Santa Cruz, California (which adopted the "Surf City" nickname only in the 1960s), is presented as a real, reported claim from a local-interest article, not as an adjudicated legal ruling, since no such ruling was independently confirmed in this research. Long Beach Boulevard (County Route 607) as the borough's sole through road, its roughly one-mile commercial strip including the Surf City 5&10, and the two water towers as a local landmark are from the same sourcing. The Surf City Yacht Club's founding as an informal group in 1894, its formal incorporation on September 26, 1940, its 1937 and 1939 property purchases, its location on Barnegat Bay, its racing fleets, and its role as a Snipe Atlantic Coast Championships venue are documented in the research behind this page. This page does not describe present-day neighborhood boundaries or character differences within Surf City beyond the oceanside/bayside contrast stated above, because no such detail was confirmed in this research pass. Confirm current neighborhood-level detail, property values, and rental demand with a local Surf City or Long Beach Island real estate agent. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or financial advice.