CAPE MAY, a city of Cape May county, New Jersey, U.S.A., a popular summer resort on the Atlantic coast, 2m. E.N.E. of the southern tip of the State. It is served by the Pennsylvania and the Reading railways. The permanent population in 193o was 2,637. The principal part of the city occupies a peninsula between the ocean and Cold Spring inlet, which has been dredged and pro tected to make a harbour 25ft. deep. On the sea side, along a hard sand beach 5m. long, is the esplanade, bordered by hotels and cottages. The lighthouse on the cape, built in i800 and rebuilt in 1859, is 145ft. high. There is a landing field for both hydro planes and aeroplanes at the Coast Guard station on the inlet. The commerce of the harbour in 1925 amounted to 52,240 tons, largely fish, coal and ice. The city has sand plants, a vegetable cannery, a cement-block factory and gold-beating works. The fish, clam and oyster industry is important.
The cape was named after Cornelis Jacobus Mey, director of the Prince Hendrick (Delaware) river for the West India Com pany of Holland, who took possession of the river in 1623, and planted a short-lived colony (Ft. Nassau) 4m. below Philadelphia. The first permanent settlement here was made about 1699. It was an important whaling port early in the 18th century, and came prominent as a summer resort before i800. Under the name of Cape Island it was incorporated as a borough in 2848 and chartered as a city in 1851. The name was changed in 1869. In 1924 a city-manager form of government was adopted.