This special issue is devoted to establishing a benchmark database and framework for the analysis and development of climate change adaptation in coastal communities with less than 100,000 people. These coastal towns and small cities often have limited information about local climate change impacts and typically lack both the financial resources and the engineering and planning bases to develop appropriate adaptation measures. As a result, much more needs to be done to assist small coastal cities and towns to plan and implement adaptation measures. The special issue includes six articles in addition to this Introduction: a typology for collecting and analysing information; an assessment of small island cases; three articles on coastal towns and cities of progressively larger populations, and finally a summary of the work and suggestions for the way forward in research and application.