Beachapedia grew out of a section of the Surfrider website that had been called 'Coastal A-Z', which contained definitions of terms related to the beach / littoral and {{tag|Maritime|marine}} environments, and explanations of concepts related to the study, management, and preservation of those environments. As content proliferated, the need for a more robust management system became apparent. Surfrider Foundation chose {{tag|MediaWiki}} and launched Beachapedia. In addition to foundation staff and activists, subject-matter experts and coastal management professionals are also invited to contribute.
Over time, the site has grown to include the [[Beachapedia:State of the Beach|State of the Beach Report]], a continuously-updated report covering coastal management issues, policies, and ratings for all of the coastal [[:Category:State|states]] in the {{tag|United Statesof America}}, plus the [[:Category:Canada|Canadian]] province of {{tag|British Columbia}}.
Because Surfrider has [[Beachapedia:Category:Chapters|chapters]] and affiliates all over the world, Beachapedia is {{tag|Wiki Multilingual|multilingual}}. The majority of the pages are currently only offered in {{tag|Wiki English|English}}, but volunteers are actively working on translating pages into {{tag|Wiki Japanese|Japanese}} and {{tag|Wiki Spanish|Spanish}}. Beachapedia is set up to support {{tag|Wiki German|German}}, {{tag|Wiki French|French}}, {{tag|Wiki Greek|Greek}}, {{tag|Wiki Italian|Italian}}, {{tag|Wiki Dutch|Dutch}}, {{tag|Wiki Portuguese|Portuguese}}, {{tag|Wiki Swedish|Swedish}}, and {{tag|Wiki Arabic|Arabic}} as well.