Gulf Hills is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Jackson County, Mississippi, United States.

[2] The terrain in the Bayou Porteaux region is relatively high considering its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico.

Here small bayous and streams have dissected the topography with steep ravines to create a "hilly" terrain.

Reconnaissance, surface and geologic investigations indicate that alluvial-fluvial deposits of the Late Pleistocene Prairie Formation are exposed in the higher areas of the Bayou Porteaux-Gulf Hills section.

Families cultivated vegetable gardens to supplement their high protein diet consisting primarily of seafood, fowl, and game.

[5] An event which permanently changed the history and culture of Bayou-Puerto and St. Martin occurred as a result of the land boom of the mid-1920s.

A group of investors from Chicago and New York enamored with the natural beauty, temperate climate, and proximity via rail to the "snow birds" of the Midwest, chose an area in eastern St. Martin along and at the mouth of Old Fort Bayou and Bayou Puerto, to build a winter resort.

Harvey W. Braniger (1875–1953), a native of Morning Sun, Iowa, and developer of Ivanhoe at Chicago, is generally considered the founder of Gulf Hills.

[6] The Chicago developers envisioned selling 3-acre (12,000 m2) homesites to wealthy northerners who would come to escape winter's cold blasts, then peacefully retire here.

Stars like Judy Garland, Elvis Presley and honeymooning Mary Ann Mobley and Gary Collins adopted the resort as a retreat.

[7] Presently most people live in Gulf Hills year round, and a diverse group now occupies this once resort community.

The Jackson County Sheriff's Office provides law enforcement services for the community.