The
Susquehanna River (;
Lenape: Siskëwahane) is a
river located in the northeastern
United States. At long, it is the longest river on the
American east coast that drains into the
Atlantic Ocean. With its
watershed, it is the 16th-largest river in the United States, and the longest river in the continental United States without commercial boat traffic today. In the
Canal Era, navigation improvements were made to enhance the river for barge shipping of bulk goods by
water transport on the
Pennsylvania Canal; competition from faster transport via the
railroad industry resulted in reducing the maintenance on the river. The Susquehanna rises and flows through
New York,
Pennsylvania, and
Maryland into the
Chesapeake Bay. It forms from two main branches: the "North Branch", which rises in upstate
New York and is regarded by federal mapmakers as the main branch, and the West Branch Susquehanna. Both of these waterways were improved by
navigations throughout the 1820s and 1830s as the
Pennsylvania Canal. Together with facilities of the
Allegheny Portage Railroad, loaded barges were transferred from the canal and hoisted across the
mountain ridge into the
Pittsburgh area. The 82-mile leg conceived to connect the Delaware River to the Susquehanna was instead developed as the
Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, built by the Pennsylvania Canal Commission. The shorter
West Branch, which rises in western
Pennsylvania, joins the main stem of the Susquehanna near
Northumberland in central Pennsylvania.