Great Egg Harbor River
| Great Egg Harbor Scenic and Recreational River | |
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The Great Egg Harbor River in Mays Landing in 2006
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| Location | Atlantic, Gloucester & Camden counties, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Coordinates | 39°18′15″N 74°38′59″W / 39.30417°N 74.64972°WCoordinates: 39°18′15″N 74°38′59″W / 39.30417°N 74.64972°W |
| Area | 710 acres (290 ha) |
| Established | October 27, 1992 |
The Great Egg Harbor River is a 55.0-mile-long (88.5 km) river in southern New Jersey in the United States. It is one of the major rivers that traverse the largely pristine Pinelands, draining 308 square miles (800 km2) of wetlands into the Atlantic Ocean at Great Egg Harbor, from which it takes its name.
Great Egg Harbor (and thus the river) got its name from Dutch explorer Cornelius Jacobsen Mey. In 1614, Mey came upon the inlet to the Great Egg Harbor River. The meadows were so covered with shorebird and waterfowl eggs that he called it "Eyren Haven" (Egg Harbor). Today, the National Park Service considers it one of the top 10 places in North America for birding.
The Great Egg Harbor River rises in the suburbs southeast of Camden near Berlin and flows generally southeast, to the south of the Atlantic City Expressway, entering Great Egg Harbor approximately 5 miles (8 km) southwest of Atlantic City. The lower 10 miles (16 km) of the river provide a navigable estuary as far as Mays Landing. The Tuckahoe River enters Great Egg Harbor just to the south of the mouth of the river.
Before the arrival of Europeans to the area in the 18th century, it was inhabited by Lenape. During the American Revolutionary War, its estuary sheltered privateers. The presence of "bog iron" along the river provided material for cannonballs and led to the construction of blast furnaces, as well as glass and brick factories, until the middle of the 19th century.
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