Located on the Atlantic Ocean near the mouth of the Delaware Bay, it is one of the country's oldest vacation resort destinations.

[citation needed] The city was named for the Dutch captain Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, who explored and charted the area between 1611–1614 and established a claim for the province of New Netherland.

Cape May began hosting vacationers from Philadelphia in the mid-18th century and is recognized as the country's oldest seaside resort.

Cape May Naval facilities, listed below, provided significant help in reducing the number of ships and crew members lost at sea.

[1][2] Cape May is generally low-lying; its highest point, at the intersection of Washington and Jackson Streets, is 14 ft (4.3 m) above sea level.

[38] Unincorporated communities, localities and place names located partially or completely within the city include Poverty Beach.

Many historic hotels and B&Bs are located in Cape May, and commercial and sport fishing is a significant component of its economy.

Cove Beach, located at Cape May southernmost tip, hosts hundreds of swimmers, sunbathers, surfers, and hikers daily during summer months.

Cape May County established a tourism office in Montreal, Quebec, but around 1995 it closed due to budget cuts.

[66] Cape May Stage, an Equity theater founded in 1988, performs at the Robert Shackleton Playhouse on the corner of Bank and Lafayette Streets.

[68] Cape May is home to the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts & Humanities (MAC), established in 1970 by volunteers who succeeded in saving the 1879 Emlen Physick Estate from demolition.

[69] The Center for Community Arts (CCA) offers African American history tours of Cape May, arts programs for young people[70] and is transforming the historic Franklin Street School, constructed in 1928 to house African-American students in a segregated school, into a Community Cultural Center.

Collecting Cape May diamonds is a popular pastime and many tourist shops sell them polished or even as faceted stones.

Several species of whales and dolphins can be seen in the waters of the Delaware Bay and Atlantic Ocean, many within 10 mi (16 km) of land, due to the confluence of fresh and saltwater that make for a nutrient rich area for marine life.

Whale and dolphin watching cruises are a year-round attraction in Cape May, part of an ecotourism / agritourism industry that generated $450 million in revenue in the county, the most of any in the state.

[84] In March 2015, Councilman Jerry Inderwies Jr. resigned to protest what he called a "witch hunt" against the police chief.

In November 2021, the city council appointed Michael Yeager to fill the seat expiring in December 2021 that had bene held by Christopher Bezaire until he resigned after pleading guilty earlier that month to charges that he had engaged in stalking an ex-girlfriend and that he had been in contempt of court.

Other members of the Cape May City Council are Deputy Mayor Lorraine M. Baldwin (2026), Maureen K. McDade (2026), Shaine P. Meier (2026) and Michael Yeager (2024; elected to fill an unexpired term).

[95][96][97] For the 119th United States Congress, New Jersey's 2nd congressional district is represented by Jeff Van Drew (R, Dennis Township).

[99] For the 2024-2025 session, the 1st legislative district of the New Jersey Legislature is represented in the State Senate by Mike Testa (R, Vineland) and in the General Assembly by Antwan McClellan (R, Ocean City) and Erik K. Simonsen (R, Lower Township).

[100] Cape May County is governed by a five-person Board of County Commissioners whose members are elected at-large on a partisan basis to three-year terms of office on a staggered basis, with either one or two seats coming up for election each year; At an annual reorganization held each January, the commissioners select one member to serve as director and another to serve as vice-director.

Cape May officials have argued that the district's funding formula based on assessed property values unfairly penalizes Cape May, which has higher property values and a smaller number of high school students as a percentage of the population than the other constituent districts, especially Lower Township.

[148] A task force convened by Cape May City Council stated that the former library on Ocean Street should be used as a community center.

[151] In the past Cape May elementary schools were segregated on the basis of race; churches and households initially educated black children.

1970 the first Cape May High School building was demolished, and was replaced with an Acme Markets location that occupied the site starting in the 1970s.

The regional newspapers for the area including Cape May County are the Press of Atlantic City, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

[173] The name Exit Zero refers to the town's location at the far southern end of the Garden State Parkway near the intersection with Route 109.

In 1924, the U.S. Coast Guard occupied the base and established air facilities for planes used in support of United States Customs Service efforts.

With the advent of World War II, a larger airstrip was constructed and the United States Navy returned to train aircraft carrier pilots.

The Coast Guard also increased its Cape May forces for coastal patrol, anti-submarine warfare, air/sea rescue and buoy service.