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South Beach

Ocean Dr, Miami Beach, FL

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South Beach, the stretch of Miami Beach roughly between 1st and 23rd Streets, is the beach most people picture when they picture Miami at all — a wide, white-sand shoreline backed by the pastel Art Deco hotels of Ocean Drive, itself a designated historic district since 1979 protecting one of the largest concentrations of Art Deco architecture in the world. The beach itself is lifeguard-patrolled along its full length, with color-coded flags marking daily surf and current conditions, and the adjacent Lummus Park runs as a long grassy buffer between the sand and the traffic and nightlife of Ocean Drive, giving sunbathers a genuine break from the strip's constant noise and foot traffic. Its reputation as a party destination, especially around the clubs and bars clustered near 5th to 15th Streets, coexists with quieter, more family-oriented stretches further north, meaning the actual on-the-sand experience varies considerably depending on exactly where along South Beach a visitor sets up. For a Miami beaches list, South Beach is the essential "the one everyone means" entry — the Art Deco-backed, lifeguard-patrolled stretch of sand that put Miami Beach on the map and remains the city's most recognizable and heavily visited shoreline.

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