Delmarva in Snow DEC 2010

by Greg Reed

Title

Delmarva in Snow DEC 2010

Artist

Greg Reed

Medium

Photograph - Photo

Description

Delmarva Peninsula

The Delmarva Peninsula, or simply Delmarva, is a large peninsula on the East Coast of the United States, occupied by Delaware and parts of the Eastern Shores of Maryland and Virginia. The peninsula is 170 miles (274 km) long. In width, it ranges from 70 miles (113 km) near its center, to 12 miles (19 km) at the isthmus on its northern edge, to less near its southern tip of Cape Charles. It is bordered by the Chesapeake Bay on the west, the Delaware River, Delaware Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean on the east, and the Elk River and its isthmus on the north.

Etymology

In older sources, the peninsula between Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay was referred to variously as the Delaware and Chesapeake Peninsula or simply the Chesapeake Peninsula.

The toponym Delmarva is a clipped compound of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia (abbreviated VA), which in turn was modeled after Delmar, a border town named after two of those states. While Delmar was founded and named in 1859, the earliest uses of the name Delmarva occurred several decades later and appear to have been commercial; for example, the Delmarva Heat, Light, and Refrigerating Corp. of Chincoteague, Virginia, was in existence by 1913[1]—but general use of the term did not occur until the 1920s.[2]

Geography

The northern isthmus of the peninsula is transected by the sea-level Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. Several bridges cross the canal, and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel join the peninsula to mainland Maryland and Virginia, respectively. Another point of access is Lewes, Delaware, reachable by the Cape May–Lewes Ferry from Cape May, New Jersey.

Dover, Delaware's capital city, is the peninsula's largest city by population, but the main commercial area is Salisbury, Maryland, near its center. Including all offshore islands (the largest of which is Kent Island in Maryland), the total land area south of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal is 5,454 sq mi (14,130 km2). At the 2000 census the total population was 681,030, giving an average population density of 124.86 inhabitants per square mile (48.21/km2).

Cape Charles forms the southern tip of the peninsula in Virginia.

The entire Delmarva Peninsula falls within the Atlantic Coastal Plain, a flat and sandy area with very few or no hills; the highest point in the peninsula is only 102 ft (31 m) above sea level.[3] The fall line, found in the region southwest of Wilmington, Delaware, and just north of the northern edge of the Delmarva Peninsula, is a geographic borderland where the Piedmont region transitions into the coastal plain. Its Atlantic Ocean coast is formed by the Virginia Barrier Islands in the south and the Fenwick Island barrier spit in the north.

Culture

The culture on Delmarva is starkly different from the rest of the Mid-Atlantic region and is much like that of the Southern United States. Many Delmarva counties are much more conservative than the "mainland" counties of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia.[4]

Delmarva is driven by agriculture and commercial fishing.[5] Most of the land is rural, and there are only a few large population centers.

Many dialect studies show that Delmarva residents have a variation of Southern American English which is particularly prevalent in rural areas.[6]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delmarva_Peninsula


Chesapeake Bay

-was formed nearly 12,000 years ago when glaciers melted and flooded the Susquehanna River valley;

-is—most historians believe—named after the Algonquin word chesepiooc, meaning "great shellfish bay;"

-is approximately 200 miles long, stretching from Havre de Grace, Maryland, to Norfolk, Virginia;

-has an average depth of 21 feet (the deepest part of the Bay, a.k.a. "The Hole," is 174 feet deep and located off of Bloody Point, southeast of
Annapolis, Maryland;

-ranges from 3.4 to 35 miles wide;

-holds more than 15 trillion gallons of water;

-supports 348 species of finfish and 173 species of shellfish;

-supports more than 3,600 species of plant and animal life, including 2,700 types of plants and more than 16 species of underwater grasses;

-is fed by 50 major tributaries (or streams and rivers) every day—the largest of these are the Susquehanna, Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James;

-produces more than 500 millions pounds of seafood harvest each year.

Source: http://www.cbf.org/about-the-bay/chesapeake-bay-watershed-geography-and-facts.html

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September 4th, 2018

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