Bay Facts

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.

The Bay receives about half its water volume from the Atlantic Ocean in the form of saltwater. The other half (freshwater) drains into the Bay from the enormous 64,000-square-mile watershed.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 Bay produces about 500 million pounds of seafood per year.

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

At 4,863 feet above sea level, Spruce Knob is the highest point in the Chesapeake watershed.

The Chesapeake Bay was formed about 10,000 years ago when glaciers melted and flooded the Susquehanna River valley.

Mallows Bay is the final resting place for more than 200 historic shipwrecks dating back to the Revolutionary War. Commonly referred to as the “Ghost Fleet” of Mallows Bay, it is the largest collection of shipwrecks in the Western Hemisphere.

Salinity is highest at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, where water from the Atlantic Ocean enters.

The 195-mile-long Rappahannock River is the longest free flowing river in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.