Harpers Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States, in the lower Shenandoah Valley. The population was 285 at the 2020 census. It is situated at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, where the U.S. states of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia meet. It is the easternmost town in West Virginia and during the Civil War was the northernmost point of Confederate-controlled territory. It has been called "the best strategic point in the whole South".
The Potomac River is found within the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and flows from the Potomac Highlands into the Chesapeake Bay. The river is approximately 405 miles (652 km) long, with a drainage area of about 14,700 square miles (38,000 km2). In terms of area, this makes the Potomac River the fourth largest river along the East Coast of the United States and the 21st largest in the United States. Over 5 million people live within the Potomac watershed.
Potomac is a census-designated place (CDP) in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, named after the nearby Potomac River. Potomac is the seventh most educated small town in America, based on percentage of residents with postsecondary degrees. Bloomberg Businessweek labeled Potomac as the twenty-ninth-richest zip code in the United States in 2011, stating that it had the largest population of any U.S. town with a median income of more than $240,000. In 2012, The Higley Elite 100 published a list of highest-income neighborhoods by mean household income, which included four neighborhoods in Potomac; one of these neighborhoods, "Carderock-The Palisades" was ranked the highest-income neighborhood in the United States, followed by "Beverly Hills-North of Sunset" in Beverly Hills, California and "Swinks Mill-Dominion Reserve" of McLean, Virginia. More recently, two Potomac neighborhoods were ranked among the ten wealthiest neighborhoods in the country by CNBC in 2014. In 2018, data from the American Community Survey revealed that Potomac was the sixth-wealthiest city in the United States. Many Potomac residents work in nearby Washington, D.C.
Point of Rocks is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Frederick County, Maryland, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 1,466. It is named for the striking rock formation on the adjacent Catoctin Mountain, which was formed by the Potomac River cutting through the ridge in a water gap, a typical formation in the Appalachian Mountains. The formation is not visible from the town and can only be seen from boats on the river, or from the southern bank of the river in Virginia.
The Potomac Company was created in 1785 to make improvements to the Potomac River and improve its navigability for commerce. The project is perhaps the first conceptual seed planted in the minds of the new American capitalists in what became a flurry of transportation infrastructure projects, most privately funded, that drove wagon road turnpikes, navigations, and canals, and then as the technology developed, investment funds for railroads across the rough country of the Appalachian Mountains. In a few decades, the eastern seaboard was crisscrossed by private turnpikes and canals were being built from Massachusetts to Illinois ushering in the brief seven decades of the American Canal Age. The Potomac Company's achievement was not just to be an early example, but of being significant also in size and scope of the project, which involved taming a mountain stream fed river with icing conditions and unpredictable freshets (floods).
The Potomac Heritage Trail, also known as the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail or the PHT, is a designated National Scenic Trail corridor spanning parts of the mid-Atlantic region of the United States that will connect various trails and historic sites in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia. The trail network includes 710 miles (1,140 km) of existing and planned sections, tracing the natural, historical, and cultural features of the Potomac River corridor, the upper Ohio River watershed in Pennsylvania and western Maryland, and a portion of the Rappahannock River watershed in Virginia. The trail is managed by the National Park Service.
The American Legion Memorial Bridge, also known as the American Legion Bridge and formerly as the Cabin John Bridge, is a bridge carrying Interstate 495 across the Potomac River between Montgomery County, Maryland and Fairfax County, Virginia in the United States. It is an American Water Landmark. Plummers Island is located immediately downstream of the bridge.
Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, originally Harpers Ferry National Monument, is located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers in and around Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The park includes the historic center of Harpers Ferry, notable as a key 19th-century industrial area and as the scene of John Brown's failed abolitionist uprising. It contains the most visited historic site in the state of West Virginia, John Brown's Fort.
The National Register of Historic Places in the United States is a register including buildings, sites, structures, districts, and objects. The Register automatically includes all National Historic Landmarks as well as all historic areas administered by the U.S. National Park Service. Since its introduction in 1966, more than 90,000 separate listings have been added to the register.
The Wicomico River is a 13.0-mile-long (20.9 km) tributary of the lower tidal portion of the Potomac River located in the U.S. state of Maryland south of Washington, DC. The river empties into the Potomac at Cobb Island and St. Margaret's Island. Its watershed area is 77 square miles (200 km2), with 2% impervious surface in 1994 in Charles, St. Mary's, and southern Prince George's counties. The lower section of the river forms part of the boundary between Charles and St. Mary's counties. The Wicomico River was designated as a Scenic River under the Maryland Scenic River Act in 1968; Scenic River Commissions oversee it in both Charles and St. Mary's counties.
Great Falls is a series of rapids and waterfalls on the Potomac River, 14 miles (23 km) upstream from Washington, D.C., on the border of Montgomery County, Maryland and Fairfax County, Virginia. Great Falls Park, managed as part of George Washington Memorial Parkway, is on the southern banks in Virginia, and Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park parkland is along the northern banks of the river in Maryland. Both are operated by the National Park Service. The Potomac and the falls themselves are legally entirely within Maryland, with the state and county boundaries following the south bank of the river.
Piscataway Creek is an 18.6-mile-long (29.9 km) tributary of the Potomac River in Prince George's County, Maryland. The creek is a tidal arm of the Potomac for its final 2.5 miles (4.0 km), entering the Potomac at Fort Washington Park. Tinkers Creek is a tributary to Piscataway Creek, converging from the north 4.5 miles (7.2 km) upstream of the mouth of the Piscataway. The United States Geological Survey records two variant names for Piscataway Creek: Pascattawaye Creek and Puscattuway Creeke.
Sharpshin Island is an island on the Potomac River in Maryland.
Heater's Island Wildlife Management Area is a Wildlife Management Area in Frederick County, Maryland. Heater's Island is a large forested island in the Potomac River near Point of Rocks, Maryland. It was long inhabited by the Piscataway people, who were forced to leave by smallpox in 1705.
Walker Prehistoric Village Archeological Site is an archeological site located near Poolesville, Montgomery County, Maryland. The site is a large Late Woodland village located on Selden Island in the Potomac River. Excavations carried out in the 1930s and 1940s revealed a 40-foot section of a palisade, circular house patterns, shallow oval pits and cylindrical pits, and flexed burials interred in the floors of the houses.
The Islands of the Potomac Wildlife Management Area is a Wildlife Management Area (WMA) consisting of 30 islands in the Potomac River in Maryland along its border with the state of Virginia. It is administered by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
Lowes Island is a census-designated place (CDP) in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States. The population as of the 2010 United States Census was 10,756. Along with nearby Countryside and Cascades, it is considered one of the three main components of the Potomac Falls community.
Virginia v. Maryland, 540 U.S. 56 (2003), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States settled a dispute between the Commonwealth of Virginia and the State of Maryland regarding Virginia's riparian rights to the Potomac River. The Supreme Court held in a 7—2 decision that Maryland has no legal authority to regulate or prohibit Virginia and its political subdivisions from building and improving structures in the river and from drawing water from the river. The decision drew heavily on the Maryland–Virginia Compact of 1785, an agreement between the two states concerning navigational and riparian water rights along the Potomac River.