<P> The Bay is approximately 200 miles (320 km) long from its northern headwaters in the Susquehanna River to its outlet in the Atlantic Ocean . It is 2.8 miles (4.5 km) wide at its narrowest (between Kent County's Plum Point near Newtown and the Harford County shore near Romney Creek) and 30 miles (48 km) at its widest (just south of the mouth of the Potomac River). Total shoreline including tributaries is 11,684 miles (18,804 km), circumnavigating a surface area of 4,479 square miles (11,601 km). Average depth is 21 feet (6.4 m), reaching a maximum of 174 feet (53 m). The Bay is spanned twice, in Maryland by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge from Sandy Point (near Annapolis) to Kent Island and in Virginia by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge - Tunnel connecting Virginia Beach to Cape Charles . Known for both its beauty and bounty, the Bay has become "emptier", with fewer crabs, oysters and watermen in past years . Recent restoration efforts begun in the 1990s have been ongoing and show potential for growth of the native oyster population . The health of the Chesapeake Bay improved in 2015, marking three years of gains over the past four years, according to a new report by the University of Maryland . </P> <P> The word Chesepiooc is an Algonquian word referring to a village "at a big river". It is the seventh oldest surviving English place - name in the U.S., first applied as "Chesepiook" by explorers heading north from the Roanoke Colony into a Chesapeake tributary in 1585 or 1586 . The name may also refer to the Chesepian or Chesapeake people, a Native American tribe who inhabited the area now known as South Hampton Roads in the U.S. state of Virginia . They occupied an area which is now the Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, and Virginia Beach areas . In 2005, Algonquian linguist Blair Rudes "helped to dispel one of the area's most widely held beliefs: that' Chesapeake' means something like' great shellfish bay .' It does not, Rudes said . The name might actually have meant something like' great water,' or it might have just referred to a village location at the bay's mouth ." In addition, the name is almost always prefixed by "the" in usage by local residents: "The Chesapeake", "The Chesapeake Bay" and "The Bay". </P> <P> The Chesapeake Bay is an estuary to the North Atlantic, lying between the Delmarva Peninsula to the east and the North American mainland to the west . It is the ria, or drowned valley, of the Susquehanna River, meaning that it was the alluvial plain where the river flowed when the sea level was lower . It is not a fjord, because the Laurentide Ice Sheet never reached as far south as the northernmost point on the Bay . North of Baltimore, the western shore borders the hilly Piedmont region of Maryland; south of the city the Bay lies within the state's low - lying coastal plain, with sedimentary cliffs to the west, and flat islands, winding creeks and marshes to the east . The large rivers entering the Bay from the west have broad mouths and are extensions of the main ria for miles up the course of each river . </P> <P> The Bay's geology, its present form, and its very location were created by a bolide impact event at the end of the Eocene (about 35.5 million years ago), forming the Chesapeake Bay impact crater and the Susquehanna River valley much later . The Bay was formed starting about 10,000 years ago when rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age flooded the Susquehanna River valley . Parts of the Bay, especially the Calvert County, Maryland, coastline, are lined by cliffs composed of deposits from receding waters millions of years ago . These cliffs, generally known as Calvert Cliffs, are famous for their fossils, especially fossilized shark teeth which are commonly found washed up on the beaches next to the cliffs . Scientists' Cliffs is a beach community in Calvert County named for the desire to create a retreat for scientists when the community was founded in 1935 . </P>

How did community and family life in the chesapeake compared with that of massachusetts