The beach is located in the eastern section of Pelham Bay Park.
It is the Bronx's only public beach.
 An icon of the Bronx, Orchard Beach is sometimes called the Bronx Riviera or Hood Beach.
The 1.1-mile-long (1.8 km), 115-acre (47 ha) beach faces the Long Island Sound and is laid out in a crescent shape with a width of 200 feet (61 m) during high tide.

Orchard Beach contains a 1,400-foot-long (430 m), 250-foot-wide (76 m) center mall connecting the bathhouses and boating lagoon.
At the time of opening, there were also nine baseball diamonds, seven football fields, 32 tennis courts, a children's playground, and a field house.
Nowadays, the beach contains the Orchard Beach Nature Center, as well as two playgrounds, some basketball courts, some handball courts, and three tennis courts.
When the beach opened it contained a pavilion with two bathhouses, a cafeteria, a small-boat lagoon, a 5,400-person locker and dressing facility, and two parking lots with a collective 8,000 spots.
The beach could host up to 100,000 bathers simultaneously as well as 7,000 people in the bathhouses.
 The bathhouse contained an upper terrace, which contained small plants and a large fountain that was removed in 1941, as well as a lower terrace with trees and a dance floor and bandstand that were later removed.

For its entire length, the beach is also fronted by a 50-foot-wide (15 m) promenade with hexagonal gray tiles.
Four brick utility buildings were built along the promenade: two to the north of the bathhouse pavilion, and two to the south.
At the north end of the promenade is a fence that separates the promenade's end from a rock shelf.
The shoreline then curves north, following the old boundary of the former Twin Islands.

Both pavilions were landmarked by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2006.
The deteriorating 170,000-square-foot (16,000 m²) eastern bathhouse pavilion, which had been neglected since the 1970s, was closed in 2007 and fenced off in 2009.
The similarly sized west bathhouse started undergoing $7 million in repairs.
In 2016, the pavilion received $10 million in initial funding toward a future renovation.
The next year, $50 million had been procured to fund the full renovation of the pavilion, and by January 2019, there was $75 million available for the renovation.

South of the beach is a 25-acre (10 ha) meadow that hosts the only known population of the moth species Amphipoea erepta ryensis.
Another population formerly existed in Rye, Westchester County.
The beach is located in the eastern section of Pelham Bay Park. It is the Bronx's only public beach.  An icon of the Bronx, Orchard Beach is sometimes called the Bronx Riviera or Hood Beach. The 1.1-mile-long (1.8 km), 115-acre (47 ha) beach faces the Long Island Sound and is laid out in a crescent shape with a width of 200 feet (61 m) during high tide.
Orchard Beach contains a 1,400-foot-long (430 m), 250-foot-wide (76 m) center mall connecting the bathhouses and boating lagoon. At the time of opening, there were also nine baseball diamonds, seven football fields, 32 tennis courts, a children's playground, and a field house. Nowadays, the beach contains the Orchard Beach Nature Center, as well as two playgrounds, some basketball courts, some handball courts, and three tennis courts. When the beach opened it contained a pavilion with two bathhouses, a cafeteria, a small-boat lagoon, a 5,400-person locker and dressing facility, and two parking lots with a collective 8,000 spots. The beach could host up to 100,000 bathers simultaneously as well as 7,000 people in the bathhouses.  The bathhouse contained an upper terrace, which contained small plants and a large fountain that was removed in 1941, as well as a lower terrace with trees and a dance floor and bandstand that were later removed.
For its entire length, the beach is also fronted by a 50-foot-wide (15 m) promenade with hexagonal gray tiles. Four brick utility buildings were built along the promenade: two to the north of the bathhouse pavilion, and two to the south. At the north end of the promenade is a fence that separates the promenade's end from a rock shelf. The shoreline then curves north, following the old boundary of the former Twin Islands.
Both pavilions were landmarked by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2006. The deteriorating 170,000-square-foot (16,000 m²) eastern bathhouse pavilion, which had been neglected since the 1970s, was closed in 2007 and fenced off in 2009. The similarly sized west bathhouse started undergoing $7 million in repairs. In 2016, the pavilion received $10 million in initial funding toward a future renovation. The next year, $50 million had been procured to fund the full renovation of the pavilion, and by January 2019, there was $75 million available for the renovation.
South of the beach is a 25-acre (10 ha) meadow that hosts the only known population of the moth species Amphipoea erepta ryensis. Another population formerly existed in Rye, Westchester County.
Orchard Beach (Bronx)