page_title: Colonial Beach, Virginia
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Colonial Beach, Virginia / Geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo by Linda Cole
context_page_description: Colonial Beach, Virginia is a river and beach town located in the northwestern part of Westmoreland County on Virginia's Northern Neck peninsula. It is bounded by the Potomac River, Monroe Bay and Monroe Creek and home to the second-largest beachfront in the state. It is located 65 mi from Washington, D.C.; 70 mi from the state capital of Richmond; and 35 nautical miles from the Chesapeake Bay.
  Colonial Beach was named Best Virginia Beach for 2018 by USA Today. In 2019, Colonial Beach was named The Nicest Place in Virginia and a finalist for Nicest Places in America by Reader's Digest.
  Colonial Beach is home to the second largest public sand beach in Virginia and was a popular resort town in the early to mid-20th century, before the Chesapeake Bay Bridge made ocean beaches on the Eastern Shore of Maryland more accessible to visitors from Washington, D.C. The family of Alexander Graham Bell maintained a summer home in Colonial Beach, the Bell House, which still stands today. Sloan Wilson, author of The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, retired and died in Colonial Beach.
context_section_description: Colonial Beach is located at 38°15′14″N 76°58′8″W (38.253840, −76.968941), in the northwestern part of Westmoreland County in Virginia's Northern Neck, 65 mi (105 km) from Washington, D.C., and 70 mi (110 km) from the state capital Richmond.
  The Potomac River forms the northeast boundary of Colonial Beach.  The southern part of the town forms a peninsula which ends just above Monroe Bay and divides Monroe Creek from the Potomac River.  A short distance north of Colonial Beach is the community of Potomac Beach and the mouth of Rosier Creek.  Inland from Colonial Beach lie the settlements of Monroe Hall, near the birthplace of President James Monroe, and Maple Grove.
  According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 2.8 square miles (7.3 km²), of which, 2.6 square miles (6.7 km²) of it is land and 0.2 square miles (0.52 km²) of it (8.80%) is water.  The town's 2.5 miles (4.0 km) of beaches are second in length only to those of Virginia Beach in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
caption: Golf carts in downtown Colonial Beach
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