Bay Facts

The Bay and its tidal tributaries have 11,684 miles of shoreline—more than the entire U.S. west coast.

While one-third of watershed residents have volunteered their time or donated their money to a charitable organization, less than two in ten volunteers have done so for an environmental organization.

During the winter, the Bay supports 87 species of waterbirds. Of these wintering waterbirds, 14 species rely on the Bay to serve as habitat for more than 10% of their continental populations.

The Susquehanna River watershed includes nearly 50 thousand miles of rivers, streams and creeks.

The word Chesepiooc is an Algonquian word referring to a village "at a big river." In 2005, Algonquian historian Blair Rudes helped dispel the widely-held belief that the name meant “great shellfish bay.”

Two of the United States’ five major North Atlantic ports—Baltimore and Hampton Roads—are on the Bay.

There are as many as 200 invasive species present in the Chesapeake Bay watershed that are causing some serious issues in an already-stressed ecosystem. Some examples include blue catfish, snakehead, zebra mussel, purple loosestrife, and nutria.

There have been 10 U.S. presidents from the Chesapeake Bay watershed, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Woodrow Wilson, James Buchanan and Joe Biden.

Water temperatures in the Bay fluctuate widely throughout the year, reaching as high as 84 degrees in summer.

There are nearly 1,800 local governments in the Bay watershed, including towns, cities, counties and townships.

The Chesapeake Bay watershed contains three distinct geologic regions: the Atlantic coastal plain, the Piedmont plateau and the Appalachian province.

The Chesapeake Bay holds more than 18 trillion gallons of water.

The Bay produces about 500 million pounds of seafood per year.

More than 1,800 vessels have met their end in Bay waters, lying broken and battered on the Bay's floor.

Eighty-six percent of watershed residents believe if people work together, water pollution can be fixed.

Major rivers emptying into the Bay include the James, York, Rappahannock, Potomac, Patuxent, Patapsco and Susquehanna from the west and the Pocomoke, Wicomico, Nanticoke, Choptank and Chester from the east.

Water temperatures in the Bay fluctuate widely throughout the year, dropping as low as 34 degrees in winter.

The mouth of the Chesapeake Bay is about 12 miles wide between its northern point near Cape Charles, Virginia, and its southern point close to Cape Henry, Virginia.