Ocean Grove is an unincorporated community and census-designated place within Neptune Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey, situated directly on the Atlantic Ocean along the Jersey Shore. It lies between Asbury Park to the north and Bradley Beach to the south, and its population was recorded at 3,057 in the 2020 census. The community's compact, walkable layout and seaside position give it the feel of a self-contained resort town embedded within the larger Monmouth County shoreline. Ocean Grove was founded in 1869 as a Methodist camp-meeting retreat, laid out by religious leaders who chartered the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association the following year. This origin remains visible today in the community's most iconic features: the Great Auditorium, a vast wood-framed structure completed in 1894, and the surrounding tent colony, where families continue to lease canvas summer dwellings in a tradition dating back more than a century. The town was planned as an intentional religious and seaside community, and that history shaped both its architecture and its enduring character. In recognition of its significance, Ocean Grove was listed on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places in 1975 and the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, honored as an important and intact example of 19th-century urban planning. Today the community balances preservation with modern life, offering residents a beachfront lifestyle, a rich cultural and religious calendar, and immediate access to the restaurants, music venues, and boardwalk of neighboring Asbury Park. For those drawn to history, architecture, and the sea, Ocean Grove stands as one of the Jersey Shore's most distinctive places to live.