Where in the World is Maryland

Nicknamed America in Miniature, the U.S. state of Maryland possesses a wide variety of topography within its borders, including sandy, seagrass-infested dunes along its Atlantic shoreline, to marshlands teeming with wildlife near the Chesapeake Bay, to the rolling oak forests of the Piedmont Region, to pine groves of Western Maryland, smack dab in the heart of the Central Appalachian Mountains. Bounded by five states, the Atlantic Ocean and the District of Columbia—the later ceded from Maryland by the Federal government in 1790—Maryland lacks any natural lakes due to its lack of glacial history, although geologists believe that Buckel’s Bog in Garrett County may be the remnant of a former natural lake.

A Big Body of Water

One of the most prominent features of the state of Maryland is the Chesapeake Bay, which is vital to both tourism and the state’s economy. Fed by a multitude of rivers, if the Bay’s shoreline could be unraveled into a straight line, it would stretch from the east coast to west coast and back again. Only the Columbia and the Mississippi rivers send more fresh water out to sea. Considered one of the hotbeds of sailboat racing in the U.S., during colonial times and beyond, sailboat racing became a popular sport among watermen, as they were known, who toiled aboard their vessels pulling the Bay’s wide abundance of seafood from her shallow waters.

Gentlemen’s Agreement

By gentlemen’s agreement, each boat hauled anchor and hoisted sail at 3:00 PM, racing for port until the first crew across an imaginary finish line set the market price for the day. Home to the original seat of the federal government in Annapolis Maryland, the quaint seaport town was much beloved by founding fathers such Ben Franklin and George Washington—the later resigning his commission in Annapolis after the signing of the Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War. Boosting a footprint of 12,406.68 square miles of land and waterways, Maryland’s 6.2 million residents enjoy warm and humid summers and crisp Mid-Atlantic winters, while 18 percent of the working-age population earn their living out of state, in such nearby destinations as the District of Columbia, Northern Virginia, Delaware and even Philadelphia, making the state of Maryland, an outdoor lovers paradise along the East Coast of America.