Bay Facts

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

In 1524, Italian Captain Giovanni da Verrazano became the first recorded European to enter the Chesapeake Bay.

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.

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

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