Maryland in the context of "Inner Harbor"

Commuting is periodically recurring travel between a place of residence and place of work or study, where the traveler, referred to as a commuter, leaves the boundary of their home community. By extension, it can sometimes be any regular or often repeated travel between locations, even when not work-related. The modes of travel, time taken and distance traveled in commuting varies widely across the globe. Most people in least-developed countries continue to walk to work. The cheapest method of commuting after walking is usually by bicycle, so this is common in low-income countries but is also increasingly practised by people in wealthier countries for environmental, health, and often time reasons. In middle-income countries, motorcycle commuting is very common.

The next technology adopted as countries develop is more dependent on location: in more populous, older cities, especially in Eurasia mass transit (rail, bus, etc.) predominates, while in smaller, younger cities, and large parts of North America and Australasia, commuting by personal automobile is more common. A small number of very wealthy people, and those working in remote locations around the world, also commute by air travel, often for a week or more at a time rather than the more typical daily commute. Transportation links that enable commuting also impact the physical layout of cities and regions, allowing a distinction to arise between mostly-residential suburbs and the more economically focused urban core of a city (process known as suburban sprawl), but the specifics of how that distinction is realized remain drastically different between societies, with Eurasian "suburbs" often being more densely populated than North American "urban cores".

Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia and commonly known as simply Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is separated from Virginia to its southwest by the Potomac River and shares land borders with Maryland to its north and east. It was named after George Washington, a Founding Father and the first president of the United States. The district is named for Columbia, the female personification of the nation.

The U.S. Constitution in 1789 called for the creation of a federal district under exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress. As such, Washington, D.C., is not part of any state, and is not one itself. The Residence Act, adopted on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of the capital district along the Potomac River, and is considered the city's founding date. In 1800, when the capital was moved from Philadelphia, the 6th Congress started meeting in the then-unfinished Capitol Building, and the second president, John Adams, moved into the newly finished White House. In 1801, the District of Columbia, formerly part of Maryland and Virginia and including the existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria, was officially made the federal district; initially, the city was a separate settlement within the larger district. In 1846, Congress reduced the size of the district when it returned the land Virginia had ceded, including the city of Alexandria. In 1871, it made the entire district into a single municipality. There have been several failed efforts to make the district into a state since the 1880s, including a statehood bill that passed the House of Representatives in 2021 but was not adopted by the U.S. Senate.

Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. It is the 30th-most populous U.S. city with a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, while the Baltimore metropolitan area at 2.86 million residents is the 22nd-largest metropolitan area in the nation. The city is also part of the Washington–Baltimore combined statistical area, which had a population of 9.97 million in 2020. Baltimore was designated as an independent city by the Constitution of Maryland in 1851. Though not located under the jurisdiction of any county in the state, it forms part of the Central Maryland region together with the surrounding county that shares its name.

The land that is present-day Baltimore was once used as hunting ground by Paleo-Indians. In the early 1600s, the Susquehannock began to hunt there. People from the Province of Maryland established the Port of Baltimore in 1706 to support the tobacco trade with Europe and established the Town of Baltimore in 1729. During the American Revolutionary War, the Second Continental Congress briefly moved its deliberations to the Henry Fite House from December 1776 to February 1777 prior to the capture of Philadelphia to British troops, which permitted Baltimore to serve briefly as the nation's capital before it returned to Philadelphia. The Battle of Baltimore was pivotal during the War of 1812, culminating in the British bombardment of Fort McHenry, during which Francis Scott Key wrote a poem that became "The Star-Spangled Banner", which was designated as the national anthem in 1931. During the Pratt Street Riot of 1861, the city was the site of some of the earliest violence associated with the American Civil War.

The Potomac River (/pəˈtoʊmək/ ) is in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and flows from the Potomac Highlands in West Virginia to Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It is 405 miles (652 km) long, with a drainage area of 14,700 square miles (38,000 km), and is the fourth-largest river along the East Coast of the United States. More than 6 million people live within its watershed.

The river forms part of the borders between Maryland and Washington, D.C., on the left descending bank, and West Virginia and Virginia on the right descending bank. Except for a small portion of its headwaters in West Virginia, the North Branch Potomac River is considered part of Maryland to the low-water mark on the opposite bank. The South Branch Potomac River lies completely within the state of West Virginia except for its headwaters, which lie in Virginia. All navigable parts of the river were designated as a National Recreation Trail in 2006, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) designated an 18-square-mile (47 km) portion of the river in Charles County, Maryland, as the Mallows Bay–Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary in 2019.

The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, the Atlantic Coast, and the Atlantic Seaboard, is the region encompassing the coastline where the Eastern United States meets the Atlantic Ocean; it has always played a major socioeconomic role in the development of the United States.

The region is generally understood to include the U.S. states that border the Atlantic Ocean: Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia, as well as some landlocked states (Pennsylvania, Vermont, West Virginia, and the district of Washington, D.C.).

The Jersey Shore, commonly called the Shore by locals, is the coastal region of the U.S. state of New Jersey. The term encompasses about 141 miles (227 km) of oceanfront bordering the Atlantic Ocean, from Perth Amboy in the north to Cape May Point in the south. The region includes Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Atlantic, and Cape May counties, which are in the central and southern parts of the state. Located in the center of the Northeast Megalopolis, the northern half of the shore region is part of the New York metro area, while the southern half of the shore region is part of the Philadelphia metro area. The Jersey Shore hosts the highest concentration of oceanside boardwalks in the United States.

Famous for its wide beaches, and many boardwalks featuring arcades, amusement parks, and water parks, the Jersey Shore is a popular vacation spot for residents of North Jersey, New York, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. Certain shore communities are also popular with visitors from the Canadian province of Quebec. Due to New Jersey's peninsular geography, both sunrise and sunset are visible over water from different points on the Jersey Shore.

The Chesapeake Bay (/ˈtʃɛsəpiːk/ CHESS-ə-peek) is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and the state of Delaware. The mouth of the bay at its southern point is located between Cape Henry and Cape Charles. With its northern portion in Maryland and the southern part in Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay is a very important feature for the ecology and economy of those two states, as well as others surrounding within its watershed. More than 150 major rivers and streams flow into the bay's 64,299-square-mile (166,534 km) drainage basin, which covers parts of six states (New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia) and all of Washington, D.C.

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 in the east and the Harford County western shore near Romney Creek) and 30 miles (48 km) at its widest (just south of the mouth of the Potomac River, which divides Maryland from Virginia). 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.

The Philadelphia metropolitan area, also referred to as the Delaware Valley or Greater Philadelphia, is a major metropolitan area in the Northeastern United States that centers on Philadelphia, the sixth-most populous city in the United States. This area spans up to four states: southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, northern Delaware, and the northern Eastern Shore of Maryland, though it is sometimes considered a tri-state region if northeastern Maryland is excluded. With a core metropolitan statistical area population of 6.245 million residents and a combined statistical area population of 7.379 million as of the 2020 census, it is the ninth-largest metropolitan area in the United States in 2024 and the 68th-largest metropolitan region in the world.

In addition to Philadelphia, other major population centers in the Philadelphia metro area include Reading, Upper Darby Township, and Chester in Pennsylvania; Atlantic City, Camden, Vineland, and Cherry Hill in South Jersey; and Wilmington and Dover in Delaware. As of 2023, the Philadelphia metro area's gross domestic product (GDP) exceeds US$557 billion, making it the nation's 11th-largest metropolitan economy.

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).