Susquehanna River Overview
Southern Tier Region of New York

Click here for PDF Map of River

The Susquehanna River is a river in the northeastern United States. At approximately 410 mi (715 km) long, it is the longest river on the American East Coast. The Susquehanna forms from two main branches, with the North Branch, which rises in upstate New York often regarded as an extension of the main branch. The shorter West Branch, which rises in western Pennsylvania, is sometimes regarded as the principal tributary, joining the North Branch near Sunbury in central Pennsylvania. The river drains a large watershed within the Allegheny Plateau of the Appalachian Mountains, cutting through water gaps in the lateral mountain ridges in a broad zigzag course to flow across the rural heartland of southeastern Pennsylvania, emptying in the north end of the Chesapeake Bay.

Rising as the outlet of Otsego Lake in Cooperstown, New York, the north branch of the river runs west-southwest through dairy country, receiving the Unadilla River at Sidney and the Chenango in downtown Binghamton. At Athens in northern Pennsylvania, just across the New York state line, it receives the Chemung from the northwest and makes a right angle curve between Sayre and Towanda to cut through the Endless Mountains in the Allegheny Plateau. It receives the Lackawanna River southwest of Scranton and turns sharply to the southwest, flowing through the former anthracite industrial heartland in the mountain ridges of northeastern Pennsylvania, past Wilkes-Barre, Berwick, Bloomsburg, and Danville. It receives the smaller West Branch from the northwest at Northumberland, just above Sunbury.