Gulf Shores, Alabama
8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1957 and the latest in 1978. It stands in the Foley census division. It lies in ZIP code area 36542. It stands on Stanton Creek. The Survey maps it on the Gulf Shores OE S quadrangle. 15,014 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 7 feet above sea level.
On record in Gulf Shores
Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.
Surveyed buildings and structures 1 record
- Fort Morgan, Gulf Shoresfederal building survey, 2 photographs
Population over time
2 figuresGulf Shores grew from 9,741 to 15,014 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 9,741 | |
| 2020 | 15,014 | +5,273 (+54%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
4 surveys from 8 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1957 USGS Pensacola quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1959 USGS Pensacola quadrangle1:250000
- 1960 USGS Pensacola quadrangle1:250000
- 1978 USGS Pensacola quadrangle1:100000, 3 printings
Photographs
1 photograph,Taken for the Office of War Information and the Farm Security Administration, who photographed the country between 1935 and 1944. Works of United States government photographers, with no known restriction on use. Each opens its catalogue record.
Photographer not recorded. Library of Congress
Fires near this place
31 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 31 fires within 5 miles of Gulf Shores between 1994 and 2020, burning about 2,624 acres in total. None started naturally. 2 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Debris and open burning | 12 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 11 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 3 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 2 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 2 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 September 2012 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 68 acres | Alabama Forestry Commission | SWR-20120927-002 |
| 19 September 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 20 acres | Alabama Forestry Commission | RIDGE RD EAST, AL |
| 2 August 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 80 acres | Alabama Forestry Commission | 20200802-1 |
| 4 July 2008 | Misuse of fire by a minor | 100 acres | Alabama Forestry Commission | GULF PARK |
| 21 July 2017 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Alabama Forestry Commission | 20170721-1 |
| 25 June 2011 | Recreation and ceremony | 898 acres | Alabama Forestry Commission | GULF STATE PARK , AL |
| 16 June 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.3 acres | Alabama Forestry Commission | 36 LAGOON, AL |
| 20 May 1998 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | Alabama Forestry Commission | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
4 since 1995Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Gulf Shores in 4 storm reports in 1995: 3 hail, 1 thunderstorm wind. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 1995 | Thunderstorm Wind | Gulf Shores | $20,000 | High winds damaged a pavilion, picnic shelter and blew down a few telephone poles and street lights and signs near the intersection of county Road 182 and state road 59 in Gulf Shores. |
| April 1995 | Hail | Gulf Shores | $1,000 | Nickel-size hail was reported north of Gulf Shores. Some automobile windshields were damaged from the hail. |
| May 1995 | Hail | Gulf Shores | - | Dime-size hail was reported in Gulf Shores. The storm that caused the hail then moved through Foley blowing some trees and power poles down south of the city. The storm then blew trees and power lines down along Highway 90 near Seminole. The storm then weakened some as it moved into Northwest Florida. |
| April 1995 | Hail | Gulf Shores | - | Dime-size hail was reported in Gulf Shores. |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oyster Bay | 3.5 miles | 17 | |
| Romar Beach | 4.3 miles | 19 | |
| Oak | 5.0 miles | 17 | |
| Bon Secour | 5.0 miles | 17 | |
| Gasque | 6.3 miles | 17 | |
| Cedar Grove | 7.3 miles | 9 | |
| Palmetto Beach | 7.4 miles | 9 | |
| Orange Beach | 7.5 miles | 19 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Gulf Shores | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q79669 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 119462. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.



