Middle Patuxent River
| Patuxent River | |
 Patuxent River near Bowie
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| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| State | Maryland |
| Tributaries | |
| - left | Little Patuxent River |
| - right | Western Branch |
| Cities | Columbia, MD, Laurel, MD, Bowie, MD, Upper Marlboro, MD |
| Source | |
| - location | 2.3 miles southwest of Mount Airy, Maryland, United States |
| - elevation | 823 ft (251 m) |
| - coordinates | 39°20′55″N 77°10′39″W / 39.34861°N 77.17750°W |
| Mouth | Chesapeake Bay |
| - location | 2 mi. east of Solomons, Maryland, United States |
| - elevation | 0 ft (0 m) |
| - coordinates | 38°18′43″N 76°25′19″W / 38.31194°N 76.42194°WCoordinates: 38°18′43″N 76°25′19″W / 38.31194°N 76.42194°W |
| Length | 115 mi (185 km) |
| Basin | 927 sq mi (2,401 km2) |
| Discharge | for Laurel, MD |
| - average | 171 cu ft/s (5 m3/s) |
| - max | 2,870 cu ft/s (81 m3/s) |
| - min | 8 cu ft/s (0 m3/s) |
| Discharge elsewhere (average) | |
| - Bowie, MD | 647 cu ft/s (18 m3/s) |
 Patuxent River Watershed
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The Patuxent River is a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay in the state of Maryland. There are three main river drainages for central Maryland: the Potomac River to the west passing through Washington D.C., the Patapsco River to the northeast passing through Baltimore, and the Patuxent River between the two. The 937-square-mile (2,427 km2) Patuxent watershed had a rapidly growing population of 590,769 in 2000. It is the largest and longest river entirely within Maryland, and its watershed is the largest completely within the state.
The river source, 115 miles (185 km) from the Chesapeake, is in the hills of the Maryland Piedmont near the intersection of four counties – Howard, Frederick, Montgomery and Carroll, and only 0.6 miles (0.97 km) from Parr's Spring, the source of the south fork of the Patapsco River. Flowing in a generally southeastward direction, the Patuxent crosses the urbanized corridor between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and opens up into a navigable tidal estuary near the colonial seaport of Queen Anne in Prince George's County, Maryland, just southeast of Bowie, finding the Chesapeake Bay 52 miles (84 km) later. The fifty-two mile-long tidal estuary is never wider than 2.3 miles (3.7 km).
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Wikipedia