page_title: Delaware River
section_title: The Lower Delaware and Tide-Water
hierarchical_section_title: Delaware River / Course / The Lower Delaware and Tide-Water
caption_attribution_description: The lower w:Delaware River as viewed from w:New Castle, Delaware. The w:Delaware Memorial Bridge is visible in the distance.
context_page_description: The Delaware River is a major river on the Atlantic coast of the United States. It drains an area of 14,119 square miles in four U.S. states: Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Rising in two branches in New York state's Catskill Mountains, the river flows 419 miles into Delaware Bay where its waters enter the Atlantic Ocean near Cape May in New Jersey and Cape Henlopen in Delaware. Not including Delaware Bay, the river's length including its two branches is 388 miles.
  The Delaware River is one of nineteen "Great Waters" recognized by the America's Great Waters Coalition.
  The Delaware River rises in two main branches that descend from the western flank of the Catskill Mountains in New York. The West Branch begins near Mount Jefferson in the Town of Jefferson in Schoharie County. The river's East Branch begins at Grand Gorge in Delaware County. These two branches flow west and merge near Hancock in Delaware County, and the combined waters flow as the Delaware River south.
context_section_description: Below Trenton the river flows between Philadelphia and New Jersey before becoming a broad, sluggish inlet of the sea, with many marshes along its side, widening steadily into its great estuary, Delaware Bay.
  The Delaware River constitutes the boundary between Delaware and New Jersey. The Delaware-New Jersey border is actually at the easternmost river shoreline within the Twelve-Mile Circle of New Castle, rather than mid-river or mid-channel borders, causing small portions of land lying west of the shoreline, but on the New Jersey side of the river, to fall under the jurisdiction of Delaware. The rest of the borders follow a mid-channel approach.
caption: The lower Delaware as viewed from New Castle, Delaware
exif: {}