The Blue Flag, an internationally recognized symbol of a safe, well-kept beach with excellent water quality and facilities, flies over more than 4,200 beaches across five continents and Pacific island nations. Starting this year, two beaches in the continental U.S. have the right to wave their own Blue Flag.


What You Need To Know

  • Two beaches, one in Malibu, Calif. and another in Delray Beach, Fla., have been awarded Blue Flags, internationally recognized seals of quality

  • About 4,200 beaches across the world have been given Blue Flag designations; Westward Beach and Delray Beach Municipal Beach are the first in the continental United States

  • The Blue Flag program recognizes water quality, beach quality, accessibility, sustainable practices and educational programs

The United States was granted its first two Blue Flag designations for beaches within the union: Westward Beach in Malibu, Calif., and Delray Beach Municipal Beach, in Delray Beach, Fla. (The territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have beaches that have already been awarded the honor.)

“Being one of the first, and the first on the West Coast, really goes to show the work that gets put into maintaining this beach and responsibly caring for this,” said Porsche Nauls, a coastal planner at the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors. “This is being shown on an international level.”

“Life in Malibu revolves around enjoying our beautiful natural surroundings: the ocean, the beaches, the mountains. That’s why we fight so fiercely to protect them,” Malibu Mayor Bruce Silverstein said at an event Thursday. “It’s important that among the criteria to recieve the Blue Flag award are environmentally responsible tourism. As stewards of the natural beauty that draws millions of visitors every year, we need the public to know and embrace that responsibility. We can only protect our environment if we’re all involved in the mission and the effort.”

The Blue Flag is a essentially a waving seal of quality, intended to show beachgoers that not only the water and facilities are excellent, but that the beach’s stewards are taking care to keep its visitors safe, its environment protected and its water and sand easily accessible for all. It’s also, according to the Foundation for Environmental Education — Blue Flag’s parent organization —  intended to promote sustainable tourism.

Blue Flag certification was first awarded in 1985, as part of a pilot program celebrating beach water quality in French coastal communities. By 1987, the program spread across European beaches, and went international after the turn of the millennium — there’s now a total of 5,036 Blue Flag sites globally, including beaches, marinas and sustainable tourism boats, as of the organization’s 2023 count.

In the United States, the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association manages Blue Flag USA. In 2021, four beaches — including Westward Beach, Galveston Island in Texas, Lovers Key State Park in Florida and Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii — were named Blue Flag pilot sites in 2021, entering the home stretch toward the award. Delray Beach became a Blue Flag candidate in Feb. 2022.

Gary Jones, the LA County beaches and harbors director and current ASBPA president, knew about the program from his youth, growing up in his native Great Britain. Seeing a Blue Flag at a beach was a big factor in whether or not folks would spend time at those beaches. 

“It was something that, along the south coast of England, the beaches around Bournemouth would very much tout as ‘award-winning beaches’ as part of their marketing,” Jones recalled. “I knew first hand how that translated to someone that’s wanting to spend a day on the beach.”

Westward Beach is a long, wide, relatively quiet beach, near Malibu’s Point Dume and just south of Zuma Beach — one of LA County’s most popular, most beloved beaches.

And that’s saying something: LA County isn’t short on great beaches. But Westward Beach, and the larger Zuma configuration, was chosen by the county to be its entry in the nation’s first batch of Blue Flag beaches because it “wanted to come from a starting point where we knew that we had a reasonable chance,” Jones said.

(Jones, who became ASBPA President in 2022, said that he did not participate in the jury process that led to Westward Beach moving on to Blue Flag international judging.)

“Quite frankly, it is a spectacular beach. It’s very well loved, we get many, many visitors, it’s recognizable from movie shoots and TV shoots, and it’s a lovely stretch of coast,” he added.

Each Blue Flag beach must provide an application satisfying more than 30 criteria, and must re-certify each year. Even then, the flag must not fly when the beach isn’t meeting those criteria. And LA County’s Blue Flag award, in particular, will only fly during the summer season, from May 25 through Sept. 30, in no small part because Southern California’s rainy season plays havoc with water quality at local beaches. In LA County, rain runoff from storm drains near the coast leads directly to the water. To be safe, Jones said, it made sense to focus on the part of the year in which beach water quality is best and most in-line with national and international guidelines.

The way Southern California was developed, and California’s water sampling requirements and coastal profiles, set the state’s water apart from how other beaches are used and accessed.

“That is definitely part of the complexity of administering this award nationwide,” Jones said.

Delray Beach’s flag, meanwhile, will wave year round until next May.

“With the Atlantic Ocean at our doorstep, Delray Beach is proud to have a beautiful, world-class beach to call our own,” Delray Beach Mayor Shelly Petrolia said in a news release. “I am especially grateful for the dedicated individuals who have put so much effort into ensuring that our natural beach is safe, accessible and that beachgoers are educated about our conservation initiatives.”

The dunes in Delray Beach play a part in those initiatives by housing threatened and endangered plants, the city’s Public Works Director Missy Barletto told WPBF.

“Our sites have worked hard for several months to implement and maintain more than 30 diverse criteria to achieve award status. Their staff and communities can raise their flags with pride for going above and beyond US standards to receive international recognition for sustainable management practices,” said Annie Mercer, ASBPA program coordinator.