Cape Fear occurs as large headland on the Atlantic coast of North Carolina in the southeastern United States. These are largely formed of barrier beaches & a silty outwash of the Cape Fear River as it drains the sou'-east coast of Northerly Carolina across an estuary south of Wilmington. A cape is a southmost point of the state of N Carolina, formed in which 2 sweeping arcs of shifting great-lying beach intersect, the symptom of longshore currents which also form a treacherous, shifting Frying Pan Shoals, part of the ship burial site of the Atlantic.

Dunes dominated by sea oats occur from a upper beach driftline back to the stable secondary sand dune, in which it mix by using more grasses like saltmeadow cordgrass and panic grass, when well as seaside goldenrod, spurge, and more herbs to form the stable salt-tolerant grassland.

A Cape Fear estuary drains a big watershed within Northerly Carolina, containing 27% of the state's people.

Giovanni da Verrazano, the Italian explorer sailing for France, mass produced landfall at Cape Fear in his voyage to the Future Globe in the spring of 1524 or 1525.