Ocean View is a town in Sussex County, Delaware, United States. The population was 1,882 at the 2010 census, an increase of 87.1% over the previous decade. It is part of the Salisbury, Maryland-Delaware Metropolitan Statistical Area and lies in Baltimore Hundred. Ocean View is fast becoming a bedroom community for the neighboring summer resort of Bethany Beach. Geography Ocean View is located at (38.5451122, –75.0890709). It lies west of the Atlantic Ocean and south of Indian River Bay. The Assawoman Canal borders Ocean View on the east and northeast, and Bethany Beach has a short contiguous border with it on the east. On the northwest and west, White's Creek borders the town, and Millville is contiguous with Ocean View on the west. On the south, Ocean View borders unincorporated portions of Sussex County. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , all of it land. Ocean View contains three churches, a school, and a town park. History Until the late 17th century, European settlers bypassed the area where Ocean View now lies because of the poor quality of its sandy, salty soil and the salt air that blew in from the Atlantic Ocean; they preferred to settle a few miles farther inland, where the land was higher and drier and the soil richer. Would-be settlers also faced a legal complication in obtaining land in what is now Ocean View, because Lord Baltimore claimed the area as part of his Maryland colony, while William Penn asserted that the area belonged to the Delaware Colony; settlers opted to look elsewhere for land to which they could receive clear title from an undisputed authority. Ocean View traces it origins to 1688, when Lord Baltimore gave a 500-acre (200-hectare) tract of land in what is now Ocean View to its first settler, Matthew Scarborough. Scarborough named his land "Middlesex," and the land became known as Middlesex Plantation. Although the dispute over control of the land eventually was decided in favor of Penn and the land became part of Delaware, Delaware authorities confirmed Scarborough's title to the land as granted by Lord Baltimore. A few other settlers joined Scarborough around Middlesex Plantation in the years after he settled there. After Scarborough died, the land passed into the hands of the Hazzard family, and by the late 18th century salt-making crews had begun occasional visits to the area