Jessup (/ˈdʒɛsəp/ JESS-əp) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Howard and Anne Arundel counties, about 15 miles (24 km) southwest of Baltimore, Maryland, United States.

[3] According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 5.3 square miles (13.6 km2), all land.

The name is generally attributed to Jonathan Jessup, a civil engineer who worked on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the hand-dug "cut" though Merrill's Ridge he managed as a project.

Prisoner labor was discouraged by job seekers in the 1970s much as it did 100 years earlier during the construction of the B&O at Jessup's cut.

County Executive Ken Ulman brokered a deal with Preston Scheffenacker Properties, rezoning the historic Duvall Farm site in Laurel, for light industrial use and issued county financed low-interest loans to relocate the facility out of Jessup.

[16] Civil engineer Blake Van Leer put the railroad to use again by creating the first recycle and waste transfer stations on rail to cut emissions.

Barrick & Sons, purchased the 625-acre chase property in Eastern Jessup, North of the historic town of Savage, Maryland.

The site is home to the Savage Stone quarry, mining Baltimore Gabbro rock for road bed construction.

[19][20][21] To the north of the quarry, Orson Adams built two nineteenth-century Victorian Manor Houses named Oak Hill on a 235-acre estate that anchored the community.

[22] Resident film maker Wayne Shipley used Jessup as the production location for One-Eyed Horse (2008) and Day of the Gun (2013).

The Jessup stop on the Camden Line of the MARC Train system provides commuter rail service.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons operates the Mid-Atlantic Region Office in Jessup and in Anne Arundel County.