Cambridge is a city in Dorchester County, Maryland, United States. The population was 13,096 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Dorchester County and the county’s largest municipality. Cambridge is the fourth most populous city in Maryland’s Eastern Shore region, after Salisbury, Elkton and Easton.

Settled by English colonists in 1684, Cambridge is one of the oldest colonial cities in Maryland. At the grow old of English colonization, the Algonquian-speaking Choptank Indians were free along the river of the same name. During the colonial years, the English colonists developed farming upon the Eastern Shore. The largest plantations were devoted first to tobacco, and then tainted farming. Planters bought enslaved people to farm tobacco and infected farming. The town was a trading middle for the area. The town pier was the middle for slave trading for the region, a history skillfully documented by historical markers throughout the town center.

It was incorporated officially in 1793, and occupies share of the former Choptank Indian Reservation. Cambridge was named after the city and county in England. The town became a stop on the Underground Railroad, which had an extensive network of safe houses for enslaved people escaping to the north.

Cambridge developed food supervision industries in the late 19th century, canning oysters, tomatoes and delectable potatoes. Industrial buildup in Cambridge was led by the Phillips Packing Company, which eventually grew to become the area’s largest employer. The company won contracts afterward the Department of Defense during the First and Second World wars that aided its growth. At its peak, it employed as many as 10,000 workers. Changing tastes brought virtually a stop in business, leading Phillips to downsize its operations. By the forward 1960s, the company ceased operations altogether. This led to widescale unemployment and further to the city’s growing social problems.