Susquehanna River

The Susquehanna River is a major river located in Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, overlapping between the lower Northeast and the Upland South. At 444 miles (715 km) long, it is the longest river on the East Coast of the United States.

The Susquehanna River forms from two main branches: the North Branch, which rises in Cooperstown, New York, and is regarded by federal mapmakers as the main branch or headwaters, and the West Branch, which rises in western Pennsylvania and joins the main branch near Northumberland in central Pennsylvania.

The river drains 27,500 square miles (71,000 km2), including nearly half of the land area of Pennsylvania. The drainage basin includes portions of the Allegheny Plateau region of the Appalachian Mountains, cutting through a succession of water gaps in a broad zigzag course to flow across the rural heartland of southeastern Pennsylvania and northeastern Maryland in the lateral near-parallel array of mountain ridges.

The river empties into the northern end of the Chesapeake Bay at Perryville and Havre de Grace, Maryland, providing half of the Bays freshwater inflow. The bay lies in the flooded valley, or ria, of the Susquehanna.