page_title: Delmarva Peninsula
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Delmarva Peninsula / Geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Topography of Delmarva Peninsula, created with GMT 5.2.1
context_page_description: The Delmarva Peninsula, or simply Delmarva, is a large peninsula on the East Coast of the United States, occupied by the vast majority of the state of Delaware and parts of the Eastern Shore regions of Maryland and Virginia. The peninsula is 170 miles long. In width, it ranges from 70 miles near its center, to 12 miles 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, and the Delaware River, Delaware Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean on the east.
context_section_description: At the northern point of the peninsula there is a geographic fall line that separates the crystalline rocks of the Piedmont from the unconsolidated sediments of the Coastal Plain. This line passes through Newark, Delaware and Wilmington, Delaware and Elkton, Maryland.  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 is the peninsula's largest city by population. The main commercial areas are Dover in the north and 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. 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.
caption: Topography of Delmarva Peninsula
exif: {}