State guide

Maryland Nature Guide

Maryland packs an astonishing range of nature into a small state, from the Atlantic surf and wild ponies of Assateague Island, across the vast tidal marshes and open water of the Chesapeake Bay — the continent's largest estuary and the state's defining feature — over the rolling Piedmont hills, to the cold spruce highlands of Garrett County in the western Alleghenies. The Bay anchors everything: it draws tens of thousands of wintering Tundra Swans, geese, and ducks to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, supports one of the densest Bald Eagle and Osprey populations on the East Coast, and gives the state its blue crabs, oysters, and the heritage of a working waterman's coast. From USDA zone 6a in the western mountains to 8a on the mild lower Eastern Shore, Maryland's humid, four-season climate stitches together Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern nature in one place.