The Christina River (formerly the Christiana River) is a tributary of the Delaware River, approximately 35 mi (56 km) long, in the U.S. states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware. Near its mouth the river flows past downtown Wilmington, Delaware, forming the harbor for the city on the Delaware River.
It rises in extreme southeastern Pennsylvania, in southern Chester County, It flows south, cutting across the extreme northeast corner of Maryland, then ENE into New Castle County, Delaware, past Glasgow, approaching Wilmington from the southwest. At Newport it receives White Clay Creek from the west. In Wilmington, 2 mi (3 km) from its mouth, it receives Brandywine Creek from the northwest. The confluence of Brandywine Creek and the Christiana was the site in 1638 of Fort Christina, a settlement of the New Sweden.
The river and its tributaries drain an area of approximately 565 sq mi (1470 km²) and supply approximately 100 million gallons (400 million liters) of water per day for more than half a million people in Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The river basin provides 75% of the water supply for New Castle County, Delaware, and more than 40% of the water supply for Chester County, Pennsylvania.
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