Bay Facts

There were many different tribes in the region before Europeans arrived, but the dominant group were Algonquian speakers known collectively as the Powhatan tribes.

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

The Bay’s width ranges from four miles near Aberdeen, Maryland, to 30 miles near cape Charles, Virginia.

The narrowest point of the Chesapeake Bay measures 3.4 miles, and is located near Aberdeen, Maryland.

The Susquehanna River is the Bay’s largest tributary, and contributes about half of the Bay’s freshwater (about 19 million gallons per minute).

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

Nine in ten watershed residents never toss food wrappers, cups or cigarette butts on the ground. Almost eight in ten watershed residents pick up litter when they see it.

The 110-mile-long Patuxent River is the longest river to flow exclusively within the borders of Maryland.

At filter feeders, oysters can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day.

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

The deepest part of the Bay, located southeast of Annapolis near Bloody Point, is called “The Hole” and is 174 feet deep.

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 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.

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.”

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.

Healthy forests can capture more than 85% of the nitrogen that falls onto them from the air.

The widest point of the Chesapeake Bay measures 35 miles, and is located near the mouth of the Potomac River.

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

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

Forty-six percent of watershed residents never use toxic pesticides in or around their homes. You can evaluate a pesticide’s toxicity to judge the risk in using it, or make your own non-toxic pesticide with garlic, vinegar, cooking oil and other common household items.