Baltimore Map
Baltimore is not in any county. It was separated from Baltimore County in 1851 and is Maryland's only independent city, with about 568,000 residents in 2024.
Where is Baltimore?
Baltimore is in north-central Maryland, at the head of the Patapsco River estuary, an arm of Chesapeake Bay reaching about 15 miles inland. The distinctive shape on the map is the city's boundary of 1851, unchanged since. It lies about 40 miles northeast of Washington, roughly 100 miles southwest of Philadelphia, and some 150 miles north of Richmond.
Baltimore at a glance
| State | Maryland |
| County | Baltimore city |
| Population | 568,271 (2024 Census estimate) |
| Rank among US cities | No. 30 of the 100 largest |
| Time zone | Eastern Time |
| Region | South (South Atlantic division) |
Baltimore sits at No. 30 in the 2024 estimates, 42,648 people behind Memphis and 4,740 ahead of Milwaukee. No second Maryland city reaches the hundred. That is about 9% of Maryland's 6.26 million residents inside a single municipal line. Being an independent city it is its own county-level unit, so on the county map Baltimore city stands beside the counties rather than inside one.
Baltimore in Maryland
Because the city is independent, the Maryland county map shows Baltimore City and Baltimore County as two separate units with the same name, the county wrapping around the city on three sides. Annapolis, the state capital, is 30 miles south on the bay, and the Washington and Baltimore suburbs now meet in the middle of the corridor between them. The Maryland state page covers a state that runs from the Atlantic beaches to the Appalachian ridges in about 250 miles.
A deep-water port far up the bay
Baltimore's advantage is distance: the harbor lies some 150 miles up Chesapeake Bay from the open Atlantic, further inland than New York or Philadelphia, which put it closer to the Ohio Valley and made the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad worth building in 1828. Ships reach it either up the length of the bay or through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. The fall line crosses the city, so streams like the Jones Falls and Gwynns Falls drop off the Piedmont into the tidewater within the city limits, and the harbor begins where they stop.
Cities near Baltimore
Along the corridor: Washington, Philadelphia, Richmond, Norfolk and Virginia Beach. The South Atlantic division page explains why the Census counts Maryland with the South.