Why The Delmarva Peninsula Is America's Strangest Place

East of the Chesapeake Bay, a small peninsula hosts some of the weirdest borders within the United States, while also being home to more people than 10 other states entirely. And while it's relatively unknown across the United States, it's actually home to some of the most important historical moments of the country. From being the flattest region in the U.S. overall, to its attempts to become a full-blown independent state, here are 15 fascinating geography facts you never knew about the Delmarva Peninsula. Sandwiched between the Chesapeake Bay on one side and the Delaware Bay on the other, the Delmarva Peninsula is only connected to the mainland by a narrow 12-mile-wide isthmus, leaving it just barely shy of being a full-blown island. This narrow connection to the mainland leaves the Delmarva Peninsula isolated enough that it might as well be an island, however, especially culturally. South of the isthmus, the peninsula widens considerably, peaking at 70 miles in width, before narrowing again towards the south, ending with a long stretch of headland known as Cape Charles. The whole peninsula measures just 170 miles in length, making it one of the larger features on the U.S.'s Atlantic coast. Outside of Florida and the two halves of Michigan, it's the largest peninsula in the lower 48. Geographically, the Delmarva Peninsula is separated from the mainland by the Atlantic seaboard fall line. West of this escarpment is something that we call the Piedmont, a plateau that climbs towards the foothills of the eastern ranges of the Appalachians. While to the east of this fall line is the Atlantic Plain, a much flatter coastal plain that makes up much of the eastern seaboard. The Delmarva Peninsula is effectively an isolated fragment of the Atlantic Plain, separated from the rest of the plain by the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. As a consequence, the Delmarva Peninsula is extremely flat and low-lying, and even the tallest hill on the peninsula only climbs to 102 feet above sea level. Even Florida has a hill taller than that, which makes the Delmarva Peninsula's flatness exceptional, even by eastern seaboard standards. In this way, the Delmarva Peninsula is far more susceptible to sea level rise than almost anywhere else in the country. West of the Delmarva Peninsula lies the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the United States, an economically and ecologically crucial component of this part of the United States. The bay's shallow waters are home to an enormous diversity of sea life, most famously crabs, As well as oysters, fish, and eels, along with visiting species of sturgeons, rays, sharks, whales, and sea turtles. This thriving aquatic ecosystem supports bird species like peregrine falcons, ospreys, great blue herons, and bald eagles. And it also supports fishing industries on both the mainland and on the peninsula. All this is to say, the Chesapeake Bay is a vital part of the Delmarva Peninsula's culture and economy, on top of being what keeps the peninsula separate from the mainland. As a peninsula, the Delmarva Peninsula has... Quite a bit of coastline, but the peninsula's western and eastern coasts could not be more different. The jagged, irregular western coast of the peninsula along the Chesapeake Bay is extremely marshy and filled with a vast array of inlets and coves, while the eastern coast along the Delaware Bay and Atlantic Ocean is dominated by sandy beaches and generally features a much straighter and less complicated coastline. The southern portion of the Atlantic Coast features the hurricane-battered Virginia Barrier Islands, an important ecological preserve While to the north is home to Cape Henlopen, which forms the southern part of the Delaware Bay Coast. All this is to say, while the West serves as an important place to fish and support aquatic industries in the Chesapeake Bay, the East Coast beaches are a big part of the Delmarva Peninsula's leisure culture, while also being a major draw for tourists. Buried beneath the southern tip of the Delmarva Peninsula is the Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater, the ancient remnant of an asteroid impact that happened over 35 million years ago. The crater is roughly twice the size of the state of Rhode Island, and the impact that created it scattered debris for hundreds of miles across the east coast. Today, this crater is completely buried, but it still has a major effect on the geography of the region. It's actually why the Delmarva Peninsula exists at all in the first place. You see, The crater created a long-lasting topographic depression that altered the flow of local rivers along the East Coast, diverting them towards the crater. 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Humans have lived on the Delmarva Peninsula since the Pleistocene Epoch, and before the arrival of European colonists, the peninsula was home to a number of Algonquin-speaking peoples. These included the Assateague in the southeast, the Nanticoke farther north, the Choptank in the east, and the Lenape in the northwest. The peninsula's indigenous peoples lived mainly in small small agricultural villages. Which regularly relocated when their farmlands grew less productive. The Delmarva Peninsula kept these people isolated enough from the mainland that they were able to remain independent of the Tidewater region's powerful confederacies. Though they still had plenty of trade and contact with their neighbors to the west. Europeans first reached the Delmarva Peninsula in 1566 when a small Spanish expedition landed on the shores of the Chesapeake. They believed the Chesapeake to be one end of the fabled Northwest Passage and they attempted to build a colony on the peninsula to establish control. over the waterway. But the Spaniards were quickly driven off by a storm. In later years, other European powers made their own attempts at colonizing the peninsula, but their efforts were also short-lived. The Dutch West India Company established a colony in modern Delaware in 1631, but it barely lasted a year before it picked a fight with the local indigenous peoples and...were destroyed. The Swedish Empire moved in next. Establishing New Sweden in modern-day Delaware in 1638. But the Dutch took the land back in 1655, only to lose it to the English nine years later. It was only under the English that colonization really stuck on the Delmarva Peninsula. The first English colonies on the peninsula were established in the south as part of the Virginia colony, while the northern parts of the peninsula were granted to the Maryland colony and the province of Pennsylvania. Early in the Revolutionary War, the Pennsylvania portions of the peninsula later broke off to become Delaware in June 1776, shortly before the Declaration of Independence. Under British rule, colonization of the peninsula kicked into high gear. from the coasts, and increasing numbers of settlers arrived on the Delmarva Peninsula's shores. The influx of settlers steadily displaced most of the peninsula's indigenous peoples, some of whom were driven as far north as Canada. On a map, one of the most striking things about the Delmarva Peninsula is its state borders, which originate from the colonial period. The 1608-1611 charters of the Virginia colony granted it all of the peninsula south of a parallel running east from the Potomac River, while the 1632 charter of the Maryland colony gave Maryland all of the unrecognized land along the Chesapeake north of that parallel. Maryland argued that this gave them the rights to modern-day Delaware. But after more than a century of legal battles, the English courts determined that the 1631 Dutch settlement there meant that Delaware was excluded from Maryland's claim. In 1767, English surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon were sent to confirm the border between Maryland and what was then still Pennsylvania, charting what became known as the Mason-Dixon Line. A line that still, to this day, creates a cultural border between the North and the South. Fairly early in the colonization of the Delmarva Peninsula, cartographers and political leaders began floating the idea of a canal across the peninsula's narrow northern isthmus. Connecting the Delaware Bay and the Chesapeake Bay. After decades of proposals and surveys, the proposed canal finally began construction in 1804. But the project was riddled with obstacles and funding shortages, and it took decades for the canal to actually be completed. Just two years into the project, work stopped due to a lack of funding, and it took nearly 20 years for work to resume. It was only in 1829 that the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal was finally opened for business, greatly reducing travel times between Philadelphia To this day, the canal is still in operation, though due to its strong currents and inclement weather, a U.S. Coast Guard pilot is required for all ships to sail through it. On paper, the Delmarva Peninsula is a starkly divided place, a composite of Delaware, the eastern shore of Maryland, and a sliver of Virginia. But culturally? The Delmarva Peninsula is effectively its own entity entirely. The peninsula is noticeably more rural and more conservative than its close mainland neighbors, with the notable exception of the more urbanized northern portion of Delaware around Wilmington. The local culture has strong southern influences, but the peninsula also has deep Catholic roots, which trace back to the founding of the Maryland Colony. Because of this, the Delmarva Peninsula is culturally distinct from all of its neighbors, and its people have a strong shared identity, irrespective of of state borders. As of the 2020 census, the Delmarva Peninsula has a total population of around 1.5 million people, comparable to Hawaii or New Hampshire, but this number changes depending on how you count it. Because while the peninsula is mostly rural, it does have a few prominent urban centers, primarily Dover in Delaware, Salisbury in Maryland, and, of course, the city of Wilmington, home to about 500,000 people by itself. But here's the thing. Wilmington, while often considered to be culturally part of the Delmarva Peninsula, sits firmly of it, which means the true population of the peninsula is probably less than 1 million people. Now, all that said, the populations of some beachside towns and cities grow dramatically during the warmer months. Rehoboth Beach in Delaware, which calls itself the nation's summer capital, sees a 16-fold population increase every summer. So what's the true population size of the Delmarva Peninsula? Depends on who and when you ask. Given the Delmarva Peninsula's shared culture and how it clashes with those of mainland Maryland and Virginia, it's unsurprising that there have been proposals for the peninsula to form its own state. In 1776, back during the Revolutionary War, delegates from Maryland's Eastern Shore attempted to work a clause into the Maryland Declaration of Rights that would allow the Eastern Shore to secede, which was shot down. Additional attempts to make the Eastern Shore part of Delaware instead of Maryland came Came close to succeeding. But ultimately failed in 1833, 1834 and 1851. Much more recently, some residents began pushing for the Maryland and Virginia portions of the peninsula to secede and form a new state with southern and central Delaware in the early nineties, forming the Delmarva State Party. So far, the idea hasn't gotten much traction, so for the time being, the peninsula's bizarre borders are likely to stay in place. With the opening of the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal, the last land connection between the Delmarva Peninsula and the mainland was But of course, the new canal was crossed by bridges, and nowadays, there are many more ways to get to and from the peninsula. Five bridges span the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal, and there are also two routes between Delmarva and the mainland that run across the Chesapeake. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge runs from the peninsula to Annapolis, Maryland, while the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel connects the southern peninsula to Norfolk, Virginia, with a series of bridges and undersea tunnels. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel is actually the largest bridge tunnel tunnel complex in the world and it makes travel to and from Delmarva much easier for people living in the southern parts of the peninsula. Agriculture, aquaculture, fishing, and tourism are the Delmarva Peninsula's main industries. Aquaculture and fishing are mainly concentrated along the Chesapeake Bay, and though Delmarva's share of these industries is dwarfed by the western shores, the bay is still the backbone of many eastern Maryland communities. Meanwhile, the beaches of the eastern coast are popular with tourists, especially in the summer months, which not only bolsters the local economy, but also dramatically increases the local population. But for most of the peninsula, particularly in the interior and along the eastern shore, Agriculture dominates, mainly producing poultry, tomatoes, soybeans. The Delmarva Peninsula is one of those corners of the U.S. that tends to get forgotten about. But a lot of the time, it's forgotten places like that which tend to have the most interesting stories and geography. I hope you enjoyed learning all about the Delmarva Peninsula. If you did, be sure to check out this video all about the Chihuahuan Desert. Thanks for watching, see you next time.