Route 9 Coastal Heritage Byway is a Delaware treasure - a scenic, two-lane road that follows along the Delaware River and Bay Estuary. It offers visitors an intimate experience with the largest preserved coastal marshland on the east coast.The byway lies entirely within the Atlantic Flyway where each spring, hundreds of thousands of migrating shorebirds can be found feeding and resting while they continue their journey to their northern breeding grounds. While in the fall, the byway corridor displays thousands of waterfowl migrating south for the winter.

Route 9 provides a rare glimpse of a simpler time where one can unwind and savor the state's pastoral scenery. This picturesque 52-mile long corridor from the historic city of Old New Castle south to the John Dickinson Plantation compliments the State's designation of Route 9 as a Coastal Heritage Greenway. The byway encompasses the First State Heritage Park in Dover linking historic and cultural sites in the city where since 1777 it is Delaware's seat of government.

Delaware's Coastal Heritage Byway is a road of rhythm and rhyme. It offers a connection to all that is Delaware; history, open space, fresh and saltwater marshes, small towns and large farms, rivers and the bay, lighthouses and dark skies, historic mansions and migrant shacks, and water birds and watermen.