Delaware map

Where Delaware is

Delaware occupies the northeastern corner of the Delmarva Peninsula on the Mid-Atlantic coast. It is 96 miles long from north to south and between 9 and 35 miles wide. Pennsylvania is to the north, New Jersey to the east across the Delaware River and Delaware Bay, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Maryland to the south and west. Wilmington, in the far north, is part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area; Dover is in the centre; the southern county, Sussex, holds the ocean beaches at Rehoboth and Bethany.

Major cities

Geography

• Ebright Azimuth — 448 feet, near the Pennsylvania line north of Wilmington: the lowest state high point in the US after Florida's. Delaware's mean elevation, about 60 feet, is the lowest of any state.
• Delaware River and Bay — the whole eastern edge; the river is a major shipping channel to Philadelphia and the bay is 30 miles across at its mouth.
• Atlantic coast — about 28 miles of ocean beach from Cape Henlopen to Fenwick Island. See US coastlines.
• Chesapeake & Delaware Canal — a 14-mile ship canal across the north of the state, linking the Delaware River to Chesapeake Bay.
• Piedmont and coastal plain — only the far north around Wilmington is rolling Piedmont; the rest is flat Atlantic coastal plain with tidal marsh along the bay.
• Nanticoke River — drains the southwest into Chesapeake Bay; Trap Pond in Sussex County holds the northernmost natural bald cypress stand in the US.

Borders

Delaware's northern border is the only arc-shaped state boundary in the country: the Twelve-Mile Circle, drawn around the courthouse in New Castle in the 1680s. The Maryland border consists of the Transpeninsular Line on the south (surveyed 1751) and the Tangent Line running north from its midpoint to touch the circle, both confirmed by Mason and Dixon in the 1760s. Unusually, Delaware owns the Delaware River to the New Jersey shoreline within the circle, so the eastern border lies on the far bank rather than mid-river.

Regions of Delaware

The three counties are the regions: New Castle County in the north (Wilmington, Newark, the Philadelphia suburbs), Kent County in the centre (Dover, Dover Air Force Base) and Sussex County in the south (Georgetown, the beaches, and the poultry-farming interior). Locals also speak of "upstate" north of the C&D Canal and "downstate" or "Slower Lower" south of it.

Related maps

• Delaware county map — New Castle, Kent and Sussex.
• Blank Delaware map — outline for printing.
• Printable Delaware map.
• Dover — the state's central capital since 1777.
• Neighbors: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland.
• Region: South · South Atlantic · Mid-Atlantic.
• Time zone: Eastern.
• Geography: Mason–Dixon Line, Coastlines, Highest points.