The
Great Dismal Swamp is a marshy area in the Coastal Plain Region of southeastern
Virginia and northeastern
North Carolina, between
Norfolk, Virginia, and
Elizabeth City, North Carolina. It is located in parts of the southern Virginia independent cities of
Chesapeake and
Suffolk and northern North Carolina counties of
Gates,
Pasquotank, and
Camden. It is a southern
swamp, one of many along the
Atlantic Ocean's coast, including the
Everglades and
Big Cypress Swamp in
Florida, the
Okefenokee Swamp in
Georgia, the
Congaree and Four Holes swamps of
South Carolina, and some of the
Carolina bays in the Carolinas and Georgia. Along the eastern edge runs the
Dismal Swamp Canal, completed in 1805. It is one of the last large wild areas remaining in the Eastern United States.