Bay Facts

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

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.”

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

There have been 10 U.S. presidents from the Chesapeake Bay watershed, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Woodrow Wilson, James Buchanan and Joe Biden.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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 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.