Each chapter examines all of these factors - history, habitats, natural and cultural landscapes, and natural resources - in sections on the eight key aspects listed above. Peopling Places assesses how changes and continuities in population patterns affect each period's natural and cultural landscapes. It focuses on natural and cultural features associated with migration, health status, culture, ethnicity, gender, and other aspects of identity. Such features can include archeological sites containing artifacts, settlement patterns associated with particular cultures, and specific combinations of architectural styles and land use patterns that reveal the immigration or emigration of specific ethnic groups.

Creation of Social Institutions and Movements charts how public and private associations expressed themselves in the region's landscape. Sites such as ball fields and memorials; buildings such as clubhouses, churches, and schools; and districts such as Colonial Williamsburg, can provide examples of social aspects of a period's cultural and natural landscape.

Expressing Cultural Values examines the ways beliefs and values are expressed when a culture interacts with its natural landscape. These expressions can include sites of high culture, such as temples, museums, formal parks, and places associated with prominent figures in arts and letters, as well as sites of popular culture, such as amusement parks, music halls, and the homes of primitive painters.

Shaping the Political Landscape examines the particular impressions that government makes on a period's landscape. Political properties range from council rings, city halls, and political clubhouses to military fortifications, battlefields, and places associated with important political figures and movements.

Developing the Chesapeake Economy examines the impact of work on the landscape. Places associated with this include quarries, factories, and other locales for resource extraction and production; paths, turnpikes, railroads, canals, and other transportation facilities; warehouses, stores, and other places of distribution; banks, stocks exchanges, and other financial institutions; and union halls and other properties associated with American labor.

Expanding Science and Technology assesses the impacts of innovation upon the land. Places associated with this include buildings used in technological development, such as workshops, laboratories, and institutes of higher learning; sites associated with first, final, or exemplary examples of major industries; and ships, aircraft, and other objects exemplifying scientific and technological advances.

Transforming the Environment considers natural and cultural aspects of the landscape that influence environmental change during a particular period. Places where these forces come together include locales where the environment is exploited, degraded, maintained, or restored.

Finally, Changing Role of the Chesapeake in the World Community considers the roles of ports, customs facilities, and similar points of contact with the wider world, as well as the impacts of products and ideas originating beyond the borders of the landscape under discussion.

Each chapter also contains lists of locales that preserve significant surviving aspects of the cultural and natural landscapes of the period that have been recognized by the federal government for their national significance. Each chapter then ends with a section listing print, film, and electronic sources of additional information.

Appendices at the end of the volume contain a regional time line, a list of list common and scientific names of major plants and animals in the region, and listings of regional National Natural Landmarks and National Parks. These are followed by a source section listing bibliographic resources, State Historic Preservation Office historic contexts, useful films, databases, and web sites.