The Yaquina Bay estuary is located on the Oregon coast at Newport. The estuary is approximately 4329 acres in area and has a watershed of approximately 253 square miles.

The Yaquina Bay estuary is designated as a Deep Draft Development estuary under the Oregon Estuary Classification system. The geomorphology of the area is that of a Drowned River Mouth estuary.

The Yaquina Bay estuary is located in Lincoln County. Principal industries of the county are lumber, fishing, agriculture and tourism. The county seat is in Newport which is also Oregon's oceanography research center with Oregon State University's Marine Science Center, the Oregon Coast Aquarium and their fleets of ocean-going vessels all calling the city home. The 1900 census measured Lincoln county's population at 3,575. By 1997, it had grown to 42,500 representing an increase of 9.3% over 1990.

The paved, 0.7-mile estuary trail path along Yaquina Bay is accessible even to strollers and wheelchairs. Trail brochures are out of print, but interpretive signs describe the estuary ecosystem. The trail curves through head-high yellow lupine and Scotch broom for 0.4 mile to a long boardwalk across an arm of the estuary. The odd tuberous plant greening the mud flats here is pickleweed, a globally rare, edible species that thrives on saltwater and is sometimes collected as a salty salad green.