Maryland's coastal zone includes 16 counties and Baltimore City, encompasses two-thirds of the state's land and is home to 70% of its residents. Maryland has 4,360 miles of coastline along the Chesapeake Bay, Coastal Bays and Atlantic Ocean.

Maryland captures the complex character and demands of the coastal zone by drawing its boundaries to include the ecologically interrelated land and water zones and the political boundaries of human communities and commerce. Maryland's coastal zone extends far beyond the water and its moist edge; it embraces the entire land and water area of all local jurisdictions bordering the Atlantic Ocean, the Chesapeake Bay, and the Potomac River up to the municpal limits of Washington, D.C. Seaward in the Atlantic Ocean, the boundary extends to the limit of Maryland's three-mile jurisdiction.