Chesapeake Bay Maps and Charts
Online Chesapeake Bay Maps
- BayDreaming’s Map of the Chesapeake Bay Region. Shows locations of waterfront towns and cities, with links to additional info.
- Visit NOAA’s interactive nautical chart viewer. Zoom in and the charts covering that area will be identified, and you’ll have the option to view the chart online or download a free pdf version of the chart.
- Chart 12280 – This is the big Chesapeake Bay chart that shows everything from the mouth of the Bay at Hampton Roads to the Sassafras River, north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
- Online map of boat ramp locations in the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay.
- Virginia’s online boating access guide – provided by VA Dept of Game and Inland Fisheries. Let’s you search by county or body of water.
- Collection of environmental maps from the Chesapeake Bay Program. Includes watershed maps.
- Fishing maps from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Shows Chesapeake Bay fishing areas.
- Traditional Chesapeake Bay Fishing Grounds. All the fishing ground names you’ve probably heard about, plotted out on a Google map.
- Chesapeake Bay lighthouses map. Scroll down past the list of individual lights to see their locations plotted on a map.
Looking for a specific town in the Chesapeake Bay region? Check out our destinations page.
Chesapeake Bay Chartbooks
Although these two books from the Williams & Heintz Map Corporation call themselves cruising guides, “chart books” would be a better description. There’s one book each to cover the Maryland the Virginia portions of the Chesapeake Bay. Each contains navigation charts created from the most up-to-date NOAA information. New books are published every two years. They’re nice, large-format books printed on wet strength paper that is nearly as strong wet as it is dry. The books come in a heavy vinyl sleeve with a velcro closure to protect them from spray when not in use.
The maps contain information on bouys, water depth, tidal currents, marina and ramp locations, and channels. Each book contains an index to marinas, with locations, phone numbers, and ameninties. The books also include tide charts, a planning chart, towboats list, and a distance table.
