Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton

Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton is one of the largest military bases in the United States, occupying approximately 125,000 acres of land and 17 miles of Pacific coastline between Oceanside and San Clemente. It's home to the First Marine Division and the I Marine Expeditionary Force — about 40,000 service members and civilians work here.

The base is not generally open to the public, but it does host occasional events and open days, and the WWII/Korea LVT Museum on base is accessible to visitors. Camp Pendleton also shapes Oceanside in significant ways: the military community is a large part of the city's population, and the base's presence as an undeveloped buffer zone means the coast here feels wilder than anywhere else in the San Diego metro area.

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Camp Pendleton was established in 1942, named after Major General Joseph Henry Pendleton, who had long advocated for a major Marine Corps training base on the West Coast. During World War II it trained hundreds of thousands of Marines in amphibious warfare techniques, many of whom took part in the Pacific island-hopping campaigns. The base still occupies 17 miles of the California coastline — one of the last undeveloped stretches of coast in Southern California.

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