Claim: Tidewater region is on the Atlantic coast of the United States.

The Tidewater region is a geographic area of southeast Virginia and northeastern North Carolina , part of the Atlantic coastal plain in the United States of America . Portions of Maryland facing the Chesapeake Bay are also given this designation . The area gains its name because of the effects of the changing tides on local rivers , sounds , and the ocean . The area is generally flat and low and composed of tidal marsh and large expanses of swamp . Much of the area is covered with pocosin and the higher areas are used for agricultural farmlands . Geographically , in North Carolina and Virginia the Tidewater area is the land between the Suffolk Scarp and the Atlantic Ocean . The Hampton Roads area of Virginia is considered to be in the Tidewater . Extreme Southern Maryland and parts of the lower Eastern Shore round out the northern fringe of the region on the Chesapeake Bay .   The term tidewater may be correctly applied to all portions of any area , including Virginia , where the water level is affected by the tides -LRB- more specifically , where the water level rises when the tide comes in -RRB- . In the case of Virginia , the Tidewater region includes the land east of the Fall Line , the natural border with the Piedmont Region . It includes Hampton Roads , the rest of the Virginia Peninsula , the Middle Peninsula , the Northern Neck , and the Eastern Shore .   Planters in the early American colonies extended their tobacco productions above the `` fall line , '' where waterfalls or rapids mark the end of the Tidewater and the beginning of the foothill region known as the Piedmont .   Tidewater is host to flora commonly associated with the South Atlantic pine forests and lower Southeast Coastal Plain maritime flora , the latter found primarily in southeastern Virginia .