Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia in the context of "Washington County, Maryland"

The Washington–Baltimore combined metropolitan statistical area is a statistical area, including the overlapping metropolitan areas of Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. The region includes Central Maryland, Northern Virginia, three counties in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, and one county in south-central Pennsylvania. It is the most educated, highest-income, and third-most populous combined statistical area in the United States behind New York City–Newark, NJ and Los Angeles–Long Beach.

The area is designated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as the Washington–Baltimore–Arlington, DC–MD–VA–WV–PA Combined Statistical Area. It is composed primarily of two major metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), the Washington–Arlington–Alexandria, DC–VA–MD–WV MSA and the Baltimore–Columbia–Towson, Maryland Metropolitan Statistical Area. Five smaller urban areas not contiguous to the main urban area but having strong commuting ties with the main area are included in the metropolitan area:Hagerstown–Martinsburg, Maryland–West Virginia MSA, the Chambersburg–Waynesboro, Pennsylvania MSA, the Winchester, VA–WV MSA, the California–Lexington Park, Maryland MSA, and the Easton, Maryland micropolitan statistical area (μSA).

The Potomac Highlands of West Virginia (/pəˈtoʊmək/ ), or simply the Potomac Highlands, centers on five West Virginian counties (Grant, Hampshire, Hardy, Mineral, and Pendleton) in the upper Potomac River watershed in the western portion of the state's eastern panhandle, bordering Maryland and Virginia. Because of geographical proximity, similar topography and landscapes, and shared culture and history, the Potomac Highlands region is also considered to include Pocahontas, Randolph, and Tucker Counties, even though they are in the Monongahela River or New River watersheds and not the Potomac River watershed.

The Potomac Highlands broadly overlap but are not identical with the four-state Allegheny Highlands or High Alleghenies region, which includes the relatively high and rugged mountains along and near the Allegheny Front from extreme southern Pennsylvania southward across Maryland and West Virginia into adjacent Virginia.

U.S. Route 522 (US 522) is a spur route of US 22 in the states of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The U.S. Highway travels in a north-south direction, and runs 308.59 miles (496.63 km) from US 60 near Powhatan, Virginia, to its northern terminus at US 11 and US 15 near Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. US 522 serves many small cities and towns in the Piedmont, Blue Ridge Mountains, and northern Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The highway serves the Virginia communities of Goochland, Mineral, Culpeper, the town of Washington, and Front Royal and the independent city of Winchester. US 522 then follows the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians north and then east through the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, a 2-mile-wide (3.2 km) stretch of Western Maryland, and South Central Pennsylvania to its terminus in the Susquehanna Valley. The highway serves Berkeley Springs, West Virginia; Hancock, Maryland; and the Pennsylvania communities of McConnellsburg, Mount Union, Lewistown, and Middleburg.

U.S. Route 11 (US 11) is a north–south United States Numbered Highway in western Virginia. At 339 miles (546 km), it is the second longest numbered route (after US 58) and longest primarily north–south route in the state. It enters the state from Tennessee as the divided routes US 11E and US 11W at Bristol, roughly follows the West Virginia border through the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Valley, and enters the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia from Frederick County. Most of the route closely parallels I-81. From south to north, US 11 serves the cities and towns of Bristol, Abingdon, Wytheville, Pulaski, Radford, Christiansburg, Roanoke, Lexington, Staunton, Harrisonburg, Strasburg, and Winchester. As one of the original U.S. Highways, it was first designated through Virginia in 1926 and has largely followed the same route since. Prior to the construction of the Interstate Highway System, it was the primary long-distance route for traversing the western part of the state. Much of it roughly follows the Great Wagon Road, a colonial-era road that followed the Appalachian Mountains from Georgia to Pennsylvania.