Bay Facts

The Chesapeake Bay Program was organized in 1983 to help lead and direct restoration in 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 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.

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

The Bay and its tidal tributaries have 11,684 miles of shoreline—more than the entire U.S. west coast.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Half of pet owners always pick up after their pet, but one-third of pet owners seldom or never do so. Pet waste contains bacteria that can harm human health and contaminate the water we use for drinking, swimming and fishing.

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

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.

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

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.