A seacoast is the land along the edge of an ocean or sea. It's the place where the land meets the salty water of the sea, different from a lake shore or river bank. When you visit the seacoast, you might walk on sandy beaches, climb rocky cliffs, or explore tide pools where the ocean rises and falls twice each day.

Throughout history, people have built cities and towns along seacoasts because ships could bring goods from distant places, fishermen could catch food from the sea, and the ocean breeze kept summers cooler. Major seacoast cities like Boston, San Francisco, and Miami grew powerful through ocean trade. Even today, many of the world's largest cities sit along seacoasts.

The word captures something more permanent than just a beach: the entire edge of a continent or island where it meets the sea. The Atlantic seacoast of the United States stretches from Maine to Florida, including everything from rocky harbors to barrier islands to salt marshes. When weather forecasters warn about a storm approaching the seacoast, they mean all the communities and natural areas along that boundary between land and ocean.