The scientific community involved in the research and development of applications of satellite altimetry in the coastal zone met for the 6th Coastal Altimetry Workshop. Research in coastal altimetry is going through exciting times: Experimental data sets for the coastal zone are now available, such as those from the French PISTACH project for the Jason‐2 satellite and from the European Space Agency (ESA)–funded COASTALT project for the Envisat satellite, and many diverse applications were shown at the workshop. These range from observing coastal currents to monitoring river and lake levels, ice margins, and storm surges to gravity mapping in coastal zones.