The river enters the Chesapeake Bay near the major port city of Annapolis, also the capital of Maryland.

Most famous for the United States Naval Academy campus situated at the mouth of the river, the Severn provides an access point to the Chesapeake Bay not just for midshipmen but also for fishermen and pleasure boaters.

Providence, the first colonial settlement in Anne Arundel County, was founded in the fall and winter of 1649–1650 at the beginning of a mass migration of a group of Puritans and non-conformists from Lower Norfolk County in Virginia to primarily the north side of the mouth of the Severn.

This "lost town" of Providence was originally thought to be limited to the Carr Creek and Greenbury Point area across the river from Annapolis on what are now the grounds of Naval Station Annapolis (renamed North Severn Complex.)

More recent archaeological research has uncovered homes of this scattered settlement further to the north and northeast as well, on the southern half of the Broadneck Peninsula, especially near Whitehall Creek.