The region is generally understood to include the U.S. states that border the Atlantic Ocean: Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia, as well as the federal capital of Washington, D.C., and non-coastline states: Pennsylvania, Vermont, and West Virginia.

In present-day Florida, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León made the first textual records of the state during his 1513 voyage.

The state was initially named for Ponce de León, who called the peninsula La Pascua Florida in recognition of the verdant landscape and because it was the Easter season.

[5] Delaware Colony and the provinces of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania had been colonized by the Dutch as New Netherland until they were ceded to the British in the mid- to late-17th century.

The region from northern Maine and Upstate New York south to almost all of Connecticut, most of northern New Jersey (except for areas close enough to New York City), most of Pennsylvania, and western Maryland has a humid continental climate (Dfa/Dfb/Dc), with warm-to-hot summers, cold and snowy winters with at least one month averaging below freezing, and four to seven months with mean temperatures warmer than 50 °F.

[6] Hurricanes Hazel, Hugo, Bob, Isabel, Irene, and Sandy, and most recently Florence, Isaias, Henri, and Ida are some of the more significant storms to have affected the region.

[12][13] Amtrak's Downeaster and Northeast Regional offer the main passenger rail service on the Seaboard.

As the first spot in the United States that immigrants arrived and the close proximity of Europe, the Caribbean, and Latin America, the East Coast is home to a diverse population and home to multi-cultures when compared to the rest of the U.S. From the strong Latin culture in southern Florida, to the 200-year-old Gullah culture of the low country coastal islands of Georgia and South Carolina, to the many historic cities in the Mid-Atlantic, where a strong English, German, Italian, Irish, and French culture are present, the East Coast is significantly more diverse than the rest of the United States.

The East Coast is home to much of the political and financial power and a center for resort and travel destinations in the United States.

Miami has one of the largest concentrations of international banks in the United States, and the third-largest skyline in the U.S. with over 439 high-rises, 68 of which exceed 490 ft (149 m).