The commercial district of Queen Street East lies at the heart of the Beaches community.

The side streets are mostly lined with semi-detached and large-scale Victorian, Edwardian, and new-style houses.

The beach itself is a single uninterrupted stretch of sandy shoreline bounded by the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant (locally known as the water works)[citation needed] to the east and Woodbine Beach Park (a small peninsula in Lake Ontario) to the west.

Most recently, Woodbine Beach has become a home to a family of red foxes that have made their den underneath the boardwalk.

While the official City northern boundary ends at Kingston Road, the area to the north has become known as the 'Upper Beaches' according to real estate marketers.

The area bounded by Queen Street, Woodbine and Kingston Road is nicknamed the 'Beach Triangle'.

[7] The current bay is surrounded by marinas, the treatment plant and a small tree lined section along Lake Shore Boulevard East such that the original natural shoreline has disappeared completely.

[8] As well, for research and information management purposes, the City of Toronto government officially categorizes the neighbourhood as "the Beaches".

[9] The dispute over the area's name reached a fever pitch in 1985, when the City of Toronto installed 14 street signs designating the neighbourhood as "the Beaches".

The beach is diminishing as the sand is continuously pushed by lake currents from east to west.

This source of sand has been diminished by municipal efforts to reduce erosion of the bluffs, and groynes constructed of rocks have been used to stabilise the shoreline.

Kew Gardens is a medium-sized park in the neighbourhood running from Queen Street to Lake Ontario, and includes the Alex Christie Bandstand for concerts.

Every July, the neighbourhood celebrates the Beaches International Jazz Festival, drawing thousands to the area.

Another notable site in the area is the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant, which has been featured in several television programs, as well as in the films "Half Baked", "In the Mouth of Madness", "Four Brothers" and "Undercover Brother", and in Michael Ondaatje's novel In the Skin of a Lion.

The area is in the political riding of Beaches—East York, and is represented in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario by Mary-Margaret McMahon, since June 2022.

A third bus line runs north-south down Coxwell Avenue from Coxwell subway station and then turns east travelling the entire length of Kingston Road as far as Victoria Park Avenue (only from 7PM-5AM on weekday evenings, and 24hrs on weekends) (route 22A).