10 Tick Infested Areas On The Atlantic Coast

The Atlantic Coast has several regions where tick populations are firmly established and closely monitored. Blacklegged ticks dominate much of the Northeast, while lone star ticks become more common farther south. State agencies, universities, and local vector-control programs have collected thousands of ticks across some of these coastal areas. The strongest locations are places where repeated field sampling has measured density, species distribution, or pathogen prevalence over several years.

Long Island, New York

Long Island supports substantial populations of both blacklegged ticks and lone star ticks. Suffolk County has conducted seasonal surveillance since 2015, sampling sites across the county and tracking how abundance changes by location. Its 2025 Vector Control plan found higher blacklegged tick densities in western sampling areas. Lone star ticks became more common toward eastern Suffolk. New York State health officials now consider the lone star tick established across Long Island.

Testing in Suffolk County has also found high pathogen prevalence at individual sites. The county's township sampling has recorded Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, in a large share of adult blacklegged ticks at the hardest-hit locations, with infection rates reaching roughly two-thirds at some East End sites. New York's Department of Health reports that most alpha-gal syndrome cases outside New York City occur in Nassau and Suffolk counties. Pine barrens, wooded preserves, dune vegetation, and suburban green space offer both tick species plenty of suitable habitat.

Coastal Connecticut

Connecticut produced some of the strongest recent tick-collection numbers on the East Coast. The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station sampled 40 public locations during 2025 and collected more than 10,000 ticks. The haul included 3,459 blacklegged ticks, 2,570 lone star ticks, 4,206 Asian longhorned ticks, and 331 American dog ticks. New London County recorded the state's highest average density of adult blacklegged ticks at 81 per acre. The same surveillance program tests blacklegged ticks for the organisms linked to Lyme disease, babesiosis, anaplasmosis, Borrelia miyamotoi disease, and Powassan virus.

Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island

Rhode Island has one of the longest-running tick research programs in the region. University of Rhode Island researcher Thomas Mather reported in 2025 that areas around Narragansett Bay hold the state's highest tick numbers. URI's TickEncounter program has tracked blacklegged ticks since the 1990s and has documented their spread into a wider range of developed and recreational landscapes.

Lone star ticks have also increased in Rhode Island. They are especially active during spring and readily bite people. Blacklegged ticks remain active later in the year, with another noticeable period of adult activity during fall.

URI researchers continue to identify ticks submitted by residents and visitors. That long record has given Rhode Island unusually detailed information on seasonal activity and species distribution around its most heavily used coastal areas.

Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, Massachusetts

Massachusetts health officials identify Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket as established areas for lone star ticks. Blacklegged ticks are also widespread there. State guidance lists Lyme disease, babesiosis, anaplasmosis, Borrelia miyamotoi disease, and Powassan virus among the infections associated with blacklegged ticks.

Lone star ticks have become particularly prominent on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Massachusetts officials also report that alpha-gal syndrome is most common in places where this species is established. Activity can begin in early spring and continue well into fall. The local landscape includes scrub oak, woodland, brush, conservation land, and trail systems close to busy beach communities.

Southern and Coastal Maine

The University of Maine's Forest Tick Survey produced a large coastal sample in 2021. Volunteers in nine southern and coastal counties collected 5,238 ticks during July. Researchers identified 2,341 blacklegged ticks, 2,872 dog ticks, and 70 rabbit ticks. Properties averaged 14.2 blacklegged tick nymphs, compared with 3.7 during the previous year's survey. Testing found Borrelia burgdorferi in 24.3% of sampled nymphs. Anaplasma phagocytophilum and Babesia microti each appeared in 5.8%. Knox, Lincoln, and York counties produced some of the highest concentrations of infected blacklegged ticks in that sampling effort. Earlier University of Maine work also found particularly large nymph collections in Knox County.

New Jersey Pinelands and Southern Jersey Shore

Southern New Jersey is one of the strongest lone star tick areas on the Atlantic Coast. Rutgers researchers place the species mainly in the southern half of the state, especially in dry pine forests, scrub, and Atlantic coastal habitats. In some occupied areas, lone star ticks occur at more than three times the abundance of blacklegged ticks.

A U.S. Forest Service study in the New Jersey Pine Barrens found an even heavier concentration. More than 95% of the ticks collected there were lone star ticks. Rutgers has also documented the species north of its older Monmouth County boundary.

The Pinelands contain extensive oak-pine forest, sandy trails, low scrub, and wildlife habitat only a short distance inland from the Jersey Shore.

Kent and Sussex Counties, Delaware

Delaware's Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control reports much higher tick abundance and density in Kent and Sussex counties than in New Castle County. Lone star ticks dominate the state's collections. During one recent surveillance year, they accounted for 96% of all ticks gathered through the state program.

Delaware also identifies the lone star tick as its most common species. Blacklegged ticks remain established and can carry the organisms responsible for Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, and babesiosis. The southern half of the state includes large areas of forest, marsh edge, wetland, and shaded vegetation, including much of the Delaware Bayshore.

Virginia Eastern Shore and Hampton Roads

Southeastern Virginia has a strong long-term record for lone star ticks. A 2026 peer-reviewed analysis examined field data collected between 2009 and 2018 and identified Chesapeake, York, Portsmouth, and Northampton as areas with elevated abundance. Northampton County covers much of Virginia's Eastern Shore.

Adult lone star ticks peaked during May and June. Nymphs were most abundant during June and July, and larvae reached their highest numbers in August. Collections were consistently heavier in wooded habitats. Virginia's Department of Health describes lone star ticks as common in coastal parts of the state and notes their aggressive biting behavior.

Gulf Coast ticks are also established in coastal Virginia, adding another human-biting species to the region's seasonal tick population.

North Carolina Coastal Plain

Recent fieldwork has confirmed established blacklegged tick populations at multiple Coastal Plain sites in North Carolina. A peer-reviewed study covering 2018 through 2023 sampled four coastal counties with previous reports of human Lyme disease. Adult blacklegged ticks appeared in every coastal county included in the study.

Camden County produced 30 adult blacklegged ticks and an average density of 1.25 adults per 100-square-meter transect. Coastal nymph densities were much lower, averaging 0.04 per 100-meter transect. Researchers also detected Borrelia burgdorferi in adult ticks collected in Johnston County.

The field collections show a persistent adult blacklegged tick presence across the sampled coastal counties over several years.

Coastal Georgia and the Barrier Islands

University of Georgia researchers describe the lone star tick as the dominant tick in Georgia and much of the Southeast. The species thrives in humid forests, brush, leaf litter, suburban woodlots, second-growth woods, and Coastal Plain habitat. These conditions are widespread along coastal Georgia and through the wooded interiors of its barrier islands.

White-tailed deer are important hosts. University of Georgia researcher Michael Yabsley has linked high deer numbers with dense lone star tick populations in coastal parts of the state. American dog ticks and blacklegged ticks are also present.

Moisture strongly influences where lone star ticks concentrate. University of Georgia researchers have found that the species loses water quickly in hot, exposed settings and survives better in shaded leaf litter and brush. Wooded island interiors, live-oak corridors, and marsh-edge vegetation provide those cooler, more humid conditions.

A Coast Under Steady Watch

What ties these regions together is not a single species but the depth of the record behind them. The blacklegged tick still drives the Lyme disease risk that defines the Northeast, from Long Island through coastal Maine, while the lone star tick has pushed its range and its alpha-gal cases steadily northward from the Southeast into New England. Layered over both, the Asian longhorned tick and the Gulf Coast tick are turning several of these coastlines into multi-species zones. The common thread is measurement: years of drag sampling, township testing, and pathogen screening that make these particular stretches of shore the best-documented tick habitat on the Eastern Seaboard, and the places where the next shift will be spotted first.