Whereas the word Chesepiooc is an Algonquian word referring to a village at a big river ; Whereas there were many different tribes in the region before Europeans arrived, but the dominant group were Algonquin speakers known collectively as the Powhatan tribes; Whereas, in 1524, Italian Captain Giovanni da Verrazano became the first recorded European to enter the Chesapeake Bay; Whereas, in 1608, Captain John Smith set off on two voyages where he charted the land and waterways, and later drew an elaborate and remarkably accurate map of the Chesapeake Bay; Whereas the Chesapeake Bay is the Nation’s largest estuary; Whereas the Chesapeake Bay is the third largest estuary in the world; Whereas the area of the Chesapeake Bay watershed is about 64,000 square miles and includes parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, and Washington, DC; Whereas the Bay itself is about 200 miles long, stretching from Havre de Grace, Maryland, to Virginia Beach, Virginia; Whereas the surface area of the Bay and its tidal tributaries is approximately 4,480 square miles; Whereas the Bay and its tidal tributaries have 11,684 miles of shoreline, more than the entire west coast of the United States; Whereas the average depth of the Bay is 21 feet; Whereas the deepest part of the Bay, located southeast of Annapolis near Bloody Point, is called The Hole and is 174 feet deep; Whereas the Bay receives about half of its water volume from the Atlantic Ocean in the form of saltwater, and the other half which is freshwater drains into the Bay from the enormous watershed; Whereas the major tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay include the Susquehanna, Gunpowder, Sassafras, Chester, Severn, South, Potomac, Choptank, Patuxent, Nanticoke, Wicomico Potomac Tributary, Wicomico Eastern Shore, Rappahannock, Pocomoke, Piankatank, York, James, and Elizabeth Rivers