Kure Beach ( ) is a town in New Hanover County, North Carolina, United States, approximately 15 miles south of Wilmington. It is part of the Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,191 at the 2020 census. It is found on Pleasure Island directly south of the Wilmington Beach annex of Carolina Beach and just north of Fort Fisher. The town is less than in area, stretching along about of coastline along Pleasure Island, and a maximum width of less than , in most places only a few hundred yard/meters wide.
History
A post office called Kure Beach has been in operation since 1942. The town was named for a family of settlers.
The Kure Beach Fishing Pier is one of the oldest on the Atlantic Coast. The original pier was built in 1923 and has been rebuilt and restored several times since then due to wear and tear over the years.
On the night of July 24–25, 1943, a German U-boat fired at least three shells to attack the Ethyl-Dow Chemical Company plant at Kure's Beach (post-war: Kure Beach), but instead hit the Cape Fear River. The plant was the only one on the East Coast producing bromine from seawater for use in aviation gasoline.
Other historians dispute whether the attack actually occurred, and there is no corroborating physical evidence or logs from the German Navy.
Demographics
2020 census
As of the 2020 census, Kure Beach had a population of 2,191. The median age was 58.1 years. 11.7% of residents were under the age of 18 and 33.2% were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females, there were 95.5 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.4 males age 18 and over.
There were 1,037 households in Kure Beach, including 601 family households. Of all households, 15.7% had children under the age of 18 living in them, 56.4% were married-couple households, 16.8% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 21.4% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 28.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
!scope="col"| Race
!scope="col"| Number
!scope="col"| Percentage
|-
!scope="row"| White (non-Hispanic)
| 2,024
| 92.38%
|-
!scope="row"| Black or African American (non-Hispanic)
| 10
| 0.46%
|-
!scope="row"| Native American
| 6
| 0.27%
|-
!scope="row"| Asian
| 18
| 0.82%
|-
!scope="row"| Pacific Islander
| 2
| 0.09%
|-
!scope="row"| Other/Mixed
| 94
| 4.29%
|-
!scope="row"| Hispanic or Latino
| 37
| 1.69%
|}
2000 census
As of the census