The Bay Watershed
The Chesapeake Bay watershed stretches across more than 64,000 square miles, encompassing parts of six states — Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia — and the entire District of Columbia.
Threading through the Chesapeake watershed are more than 100,000 streams and rivers — called tributaries — that eventually flow into the Bay. Everyone in the Bay watershed lives within a few minutes of one of these streams and rivers, which are like pipelines from our communities to the Bay.
A watershed is an area of land that drains to a particular body of water. We all live in a watershed: some, like the Chesapeake Bay's, are large, while others are small.
Learn about the Chesapeake Bay's geologic history and features, including the Chesapeake Bay crater and how melting Ice Age glaciers formed the Bay.
Learn about estuaries — partially enclosed bodies of water where fresh and salt water mix — and the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the U.S.
The waters of the Chesapeake contain organic and inorganic materials, including dissolved gases, nutrients, inorganic salts, trace elements, heavy metals and potentially toxic chemicals.
Learn about the Chesapeake Bay food web, a complex network of plants and animals that depend on one another for food.