Broadstairs is a coastal town on the Isle of Thanet in the Thanet district of east Kent, England, about 80 miles east of London. It is part of the civil parish of Broadstairs and St Peter's, which includes St Peter's, and had a population in 2011 of about 25,000. Situated between Margate and Ramsgate, Broadstairs is one of Thanet's seaside resorts, known as the "jewel in Thanet's crown". The town's coat of arms's Latin motto is Stella Maris. The name derives from a former flight of steps in the chalk cliff, which led from the sands up to the 11th-century shrine of St Mary on the cliff's summit.
The town spreads from Haine Road in the west to Kingsgate, a hamlet in St Peter parish in the north, and to Dumpton in the south. The hamlet of Reading Street was established by Flemish refugees in the 17th century.