Global InformationSassafras River information
| Sassafras River Tributary to Chesapeake Bay | |
|---|---|
 A view of the Sassafras on a windy day with the northern shore in the background | |
 The Sassafras River and its watershed is highlighted in yellow on this map of the rivers of the Eastern Shore of Maryland | |
| Location | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Maryland Delaware |
| Counties | Cecil (MD) Kent (MD) New Castle (DE) |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | divide between Sassafras River and Blackbird Creek |
| • location | about 0.5 miles ENE of Vandyke, Delaware[1] |
| • coordinates | 39°21′54″N 075°43′59″W / 39.36500°N 75.73306°W[2] |
| • elevation | 80 ft (24 m)[1] |
| Mouth | Chesapeake Bay |
• location | Betterton, Maryland[1] |
• coordinates | 39°23′14″N 076°03′13″W / 39.38722°N 76.05361°W[2] |
• elevation | 0 ft (0 m)[1] |
| Length | 18.98 mi (30.55 km)[3] |
| Basin size | 91.88 square miles (238.0 km2)[4] |
| Discharge | |
| • location | Chesapeake Bay |
| • average | 109.27 cu ft/s (3.094 m3/s) at mouth with Chesapeake Bay[4] |
| Basin features | |
| Progression | Chesapeake Bay → Atlantic Ocean |
| River system | Chesapeake Bay |
| Tributaries | |
| • left | Herring Branch Jacobs Creek Swantown Creek Mill Creek Dyer Creek Woodland Creek Freeman Creek Turner Creek Lloyd Creek |
| • right | Duffy Creek Hen Island Creek Hall Creek Back Creek Foreman Creek Cox Creek Money Creek |
The Sassafras River is a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay on the Delmarva Peninsula in the United States. It is approximately 22 miles (35 km) long[5] and starts in western New Castle County, Delaware, and along the boundary between Cecil County, Maryland on the north and Kent County, Maryland on the south. It rises southwest of Middletown, Delaware and ends at the Chesapeake Bay in a wide mouth between Howell Point near Betterton, Maryland and Grove Point on Grove Neck.
It is south of the Elk River and north of the Chester River. The Sassafras River is entirely within the coastal plain. Its watershed area (including the water surface) is 97 square miles (250 km2), with 83 square miles (210 km2) of land. Thus, its total watershed area is 14% water.
There are several small creeks on the northern shore of the Sassafras River, including Money Creek, Cox Creek, Foreman Creek, Back Creek, McGill Creek, Dowdel Creek, Hall Creek, and Duffy Creek. On the southern shore small creeks include Lloyd Creek, Turner's Creek, Freeman Creek, Woodland Creek, Dyer Creek, Mill Creek, Swantown Creek, Jacobs Creek, and Herring Branch.
On the 1612 John Smith map of the area, it was called the Tockwogh River.
- ^ a b c d "Sassafras River Topo Map, Cecil County MD (Spesutie Area)". TopoZone. Locality, LLC. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
- ^ a b "GNIS Detail - Sassafras River". geonames.usgs.gov. US Geological Survey. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
- ^ "ArcGIS Web Application". epa.maps.arcgis.com. US EPA. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
- ^ a b "Sassafras River Watershed Report". Waters Geoviewer. US EPA. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map, accessed April 1, 2011