Lacey Township is located in Ocean County and is considered part of the Jersey Shore. It was named for Continental Army General John Lacey.

Lacey Township was incorporated as a township by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 23, 1871, from portions of Dover Township (now known as Toms River Township) and Union Township (now Barnegat Township). Portions of the township were taken on June 23, 1933, to form the borough of Island Beach (which is now Island Beach State Park, part of Berkeley Township). Lacey Township is 83.256 square miles, the second largest municipality in Ocean County.

The Township is conveniently situated along US Highway Route 9 and the Garden State Parkway. The north-south track of the Garden State Parkway serves as an informal use divider under the 1979 Pinelands Act and the subsequent Comprehensive Management Plan. To the east of the Parkway are more than 95% of Lacey's residential dwellings, located in the areas of Lanoka Harbor and Forked River. To the Parkway's west is a mostly undisturbed pine and cedar forest, part of New Jersey's vast Pine Barrens. The forest is interspersed with a few scattered farms, houses and ranches, the tiny community of Bamber Lakes and open pit gravel quarries - all of which predate passage of the Pinelands Act or were developed under its tight zoning rules. The conditions of grandfathering vary - the mines' exceptions are to expire upon the deaths of their owners whereas the farms' exceptions are indefinite. Development west of the parkway is strictly controlled by the New Jersey Pinelands Commission.

The Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station is located in the southern part of the township. The single-unit 636 MW boiling water reactor power plant adjoins the Oyster Creek and is owned and operated by Exelon Corporation. It produces 9% of the state's electricity and is the nation's oldest operating nuclear power plant, having first been brought online on December 1, 1969.

Many Ocean County residents commonly refer to all of Lacey Township as Forked River with the first word pronounced with two syllables (FOR-kid or FORK-id). Pronouncing the first word with one syllable is a sign of a non-native. 28,000 people are proud to call Lacey Township home.