Tidewater (region)

Culturally, the Tidewater region usually includes the low-lying plains of southeast Virginia, northeastern North Carolina, southern Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay.

The area has a centuries-old cultural heritage that sets the Tidewater region apart from the adjacent inland parts of the United States, especially with respect to its distinctive dialects of English, which are gradually disappearing,[2] along with its islands and its receding shoreline.

[3] The tidewater region developed when sea level rose after the last ice age, resulting in the flooding of river valleys in the coastal plain.

Such flooded river valleys now make up the tidewater since tides continue to affect water levels far inland, in some cases all the way west to the Fall Line.

Planters in the early American colonies extended their tobacco and peanut productions above the Fall Line, where waterfalls or rapids mark the end of the Tidewater and the beginning of the foothill region known as the Piedmont.