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Surfside Beach, Texas

12 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1943 and the latest in 1974. It stands in the Brazosport census division. It lies in ZIP code area 77541. The Survey maps it on the Freeport quadrangle. 640 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 7 feet above sea level.

Surfside Beach within Brazoria County

Population over time

2 figures

Surfside Beach grew from 482 to 640 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.

YearPeople Change
2010482
2020640+158 (+33%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 surveys from 12 printed sheets

Matched 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.

Fires near this place

24 since 2000

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 24 fires within 5 miles of Surfside Beach between 2000 and 2017, burning about 448 acres in total. 4 started naturally. 4 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
Smoking5
Arson/incendiarism4
Natural4
Power generation/transmission/distribution4
Missing data/not specified/undetermined4
Debris and open burning3

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
5 September 2012Power generation/transmission/distributionunder an acreTexas A & M Forest ServiceCENTER POINT
21 September 2001Naturalunder an acreBrazoria National Wildlife RefugeSLOPASSIST
12 September 2011Smokingunder an acreTexas A & M Forest ServicePORT FREEPORT
6 August 2014Power generation/transmission/distributionunder an acreTexas A & M Forest ServiceVELASCO
11 August 2009Smokingunder an acreTexas A & M Forest Service332/690
10 August 2016Natural2.7 acresBrazoria National Wildlife RefugeHIDEAWAY FIRE
5 July 2009Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceINTERCOASTAL WATERWAY
31 July 2015Power generation/transmission/distributionunder an acreTexas A & M Forest ServiceBRAZOS PIPE

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Brazoria County

Mines and quarries near this place

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Surfside Beach: 1 producer, 1 plant. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Magnesite. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Dow Chemical PlantMagnesiteProducer
Dow Freeport Plants A and BMagnesitePlant1941

Every working recorded in Brazoria County

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 PlaceDistance Sheets
Surfside0.5 miles12
Quintana1.3 miles12
Brazosport1.4 miles12
Quintana Beach2.1 miles12
Midway2.6 miles12
Freeport3.8 miles12
Velasco4.0 miles12
Oyster Creek4.6 miles12

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 Surfside BeachAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q973743The 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 1369430. 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.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.