FAQ

The Chesapeake Bay is about 200 miles long, stretching from Havre de Grace, Maryland, to Norfolk, Virginia. The Bay’s width varies from its narrowest point (3.4 miles across near Aberdeen, Maryland) to its widest point (35 miles across near the mouth of the Potomac River).

On average, the Chesapeake Bay is about 21 feet deep. However, most parts of the Bay are extremely shallow. A person who is 6 feet tall could wade through more than 700,000 acres of the Bay and barely get his or her hat wet. The Bay also has a few channels that are more than 100 feet deep, which provide important habitat for aquatic life and passageways for ships. The deepest part of the Bay is 174 feet deep.

The Choptank, James, Nanticoke, Patapsco, Patuxent, Potomac, Rappahannock, Susquehanna and York rivers are just a few of the many rivers that flow into the Chesapeake Bay. These rivers are fed by the hundreds of thousands of streams and creeks that flow through the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

The Chesapeake Bay watershed includes parts of six states – Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia – and the entire District of Columbia.

In general, the lower Chesapeake Bay is salty and the upper Bay is fresh. Salinity gradually increases as you move south, toward the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the water in the Bay is brackish: a mixture of salt and fresh water.

Fresh water enters the Chesapeake Bay primarily from its rivers and streams. Fresh water also enters via rain, snow and groundwater.

An ecosystem is a complex set of relationships among animals, plants, habitats, people and non-living things. All parts of an ecosystem interact with and depend on each other in some way.

An estuary is a partially enclosed body of water where fresh water from streams and rivers mixes with salt water from the ocean. The Chesapeake Bay is an estuary.

Dissolved oxygen is the amount of oxygen that is present in the water.

Salinity is a measure of the amount of dissolved salts in the water. Water can be fresh, salty or brackish (a mixture of salt and fresh water).

A watershed is an area of land that drains to a particular river, lake, bay or other body of water.