Bay Facts

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Collectively, the Chesapeake’s three largest rivers—the Susquehanna, Potomac and James Rivers—provide more than 80% of the fresh water to the Bay.

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

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

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

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.”

The Chesapeake Bay’s land-to-water ratio is 14:1: the largest of any coastal water body in the world. This is why our actions on land have such a big impact on the Bay’s health.

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 surface area of the Bay and its tidal tributaries is approximately 4,480 square miles.

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

Captain John Smith and his men sailed the Chesapeake Bay in a modest wooden boat called a shallop–an open wooden workboat such as a barge, dory, or rowboat that was small enough to row but also had one or two sails.