Bay Facts

The area of the watershed is about 64,000 square miles.

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.

The Bay is surprisingly shallow. Its average depth, including all tidal tributaries, is about 21 feet. A person who is six feet tall could wade through more than 700,000 acres of the Bay and never get his or her hat wet.

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

Legislation proposed by Maryland’s Senator Chris Van Hollen and Representative John Sarbanes to incorporate the bay into the nation’s park system.

The Chesapeake Bay watershed has 150 major rivers and streams, but contains more than 100,000 smaller tributaries.

The formation of the Chesapeake Bay happened 35.5 million years ago when a meteor collided with Earth, forming a massive crater.

There are 6,282,718 acres of accessible green space within the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

A few deep troughs run along much of the Bay’s length and are believed to be remnants of the ancient Susquehanna River.

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.

There are twelve known species of shark that have been sighted in the Chesapeake Bay, with only five considered a common occurrence—smooth dogfish, sand tiger shark, sandbar shark, spiny dogfish, and bull shark.

The Chesapeake Bay watershed stretches approximately 524 miles from Cooperstown, New York, to Norfolk, Virginia. It includes parts of six states—Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia—and the entire District of Columbia.

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

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.

Blue crabs have a rapid growth rate and short life span. Few blue crabs live longer than three years.

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, reaching as high as 84 degrees in summer.