Christina River

River in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware; length 56 km/35 mi. It was named by Swedish settlers in Delaware in the 17th century after their queen.

The Christina River has its source near Kemblesville, in Chester County, southeastern Pennsylvania, from where it flows across the northeastern corner of Maryland. It then passes Newark before turning northeast to empty into the Delaware River at Wilmington. The original Dutch settlers in this region knew the river as ‘Minquas Kill’. In March 1638, the New Sweden colony established Fort Christina at the site where the river and Brandywine Creek join, south of modern Wilmington. During the Colonial period this was corrupted to ‘Christiana’, a name still held by a village along its banks near the Delaware Turnpike.