Population to Water
The main stem of the Delaware River extends 330 miles from the confluence of its East and West Branches near Hancock, NY to the mouth of the Delaware Bay. While almost 7% of the nation’s population relies on the Delaware Basin’s waters for drinking and industrial use, the watershed drains only 0.4% of the continental U.S. land area. In all, the basin comprises 13,539 square miles, including portions of Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.
The Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River, added by the U.S. Congress in 1978 as the 19th component of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, is exactly 73.4 miles long, extending from the confluence of the East and West Branches of the Delaware River above Hancock, NY downstream to Railroad Bridge No. 2 in Mill Rift, PA. The corridor is comprised of 55,575.5 acres of land.