Summary

• Amity Island in Jaws was inspired by real events, like the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916.
• Jaws was filmed in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, not the Long Island setting of the novel.
• Despite being a fictional island, Amity Island's location off the coast of Long Island is symbolic.

One of the most memorable aspects of Jaws is its picturesque setting of Amity Island, leading many fans of the movie to question if it is a real island and where Jaws was filmed. Steven Spielberg's shark thriller is one of the greatest movies ever made and centers around the quiet beach community of Amity Island which becomes terrorized when a great white shark begins feasting on the beachgoers. Nearly 45 years have passed since its release, and it still terrifies people enough to reconsider swimming in the ocean.

The setting for Jaws' shark attacks, however, is a little murky. Setting Jaw in a smaller resort town was important to Spielberg because he wanted audiences to feel like this horrifying event could happen anywhere. Indeed, the peaceful and idyllic nature of Amity Island makes it all the more shocking when this fearsome beast destroys that peace. The iconic summer blockbuster took place in the fictional beach town of Amity, but where was Amity Island in Jaws really located?

Where Is Amity Island?

The Island In Jaws Is Off The Coast Of Long Island

Amity Island is located off the coast of Long Island, New York in Peter Benchley's novel of Jaws. The island is described as being a relatively small fishing community which becomes a popular beach vacation location in the summer months. The Amity Island mayor attempts to downplay or even cover up the initial shark attacks because he fears it will drive the tourists away and cost the island money.

Amity's Chief of Police, Martin Brody (Roy Schneider), was said to have come from New York City. Despite hating the water since he was a child, and not even venturing in when he is at the beach, he chose to relocate to the island to get away from the city life.

Where Was Jaws Filmed?

Jaws Was Filmed In Martha's Vineyard

The confusion about where Jaws takes place has stemmed from the fact that Jaws was filmed in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The crew behind Jaws considered filming in Long Island to match the novel, but they decided on Martha's Vineyard because of the demographic that vacationed there. They also noticed that the island was less crowded, which made it easier to shoot on location and in the water.

Jaws 2 was the only sequel to prominently take place on Amity Island

Jaws 2 was the only sequel to prominently take place on Amity Island and the town scenes in the movie were once again filmed in Martha's Vineyard, while the water sequences were filmed in the warmer climate of Navarre Beach in Florida. Jaws 3-D took place at the zoologist theme park SeaWorld Orlando and was able to film at the actual park in Orlando.

The fourth and final Jaws movie, Jaws: The Revenge, filmed its opening scenes of Amity Island at Martha's Vineyard once again, but the story finds the shark tracking Helen Brody to the Bahamas with the majority of the filming done at Nassau in the Bahamas.

Amity Island Isn't Real But Jaws Was Inspired By Real Events

Despite The Location And Story Being Fictional, There Was A Lot Of Truth In Jaws

The town of Amity may have been fictional, but some of the details come from real events. Quint (Robert Shaw), the experienced shark hunter, was based on Frank Mundus, a shark fisherman from Montauk, New York. Benchley used Mundus' experience catching a gigantic great white shark off of the New York coast as inspiration for writing Jaws in the '70s. The story itself was also loosely based on the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916, a time when five people fell victim within two weeks in early July.

Similar to Jaws, the Jersey Shore beach town paid people to hunt down the shark responsible as it was affecting tourism. Of course, Quint's monologue in Jaws about his experiences on the USS Indianapolis was a true event from World War II. After delivering the atomic bomb that would be dropped on Japan, the battleship was attacked and sunk at sea. Most of the crew were left floating on lifeboats or with lifejackets on and eventually attracted sharks who killed an unknown number of the survivors in the water.