Coasts have always been a subject of intense protection and have been considered as a collective good of particular value for the humans. In Spain, given the State ownership thereof and its configuration as a public domain good, its legal regime lead us to consider the littoral lands as an inalienable, unseizable, and imprescriptible property. Its traditional protection has carried as well, a considerable amount of prohibitions and limitations on its use. But, nowadays, administrative intervention has focused its attention in some economic sectors as the tourist one in order to limit its development to suit it in an environmental protection politic that is needed to balance the littoral preservation with the exploitation of one of the most important economic sectors in Spain, as it is the tourist one. This work aims to show an outlook of the current regulation of the coasts as the scope in which the tourist sector development has to suit.