Cottage City, MD

Cottage City is a compact Prince George’s County town tucked between Eastern Avenue, Brentwood, Colmar Manor, and the Anacostia River. The 2020 census counted 1,335 residents. The settlement first took shape as The Highlands in the 1870s and was incorporated as Cottage City in 1924. Before the neighborhood houses, the area was tied to Harrison’s Landing, a deep-water port on the Anacostia, and to Moyer’s Grist Mill at Yarrow. That river-and-mill past is easy to miss now, with Washington close by and the town woven into the Port Towns area. These days, Cottage City runs on a small-town civic rhythm: meetings at Town Hall on 40th Avenue, public works and police services, neighborhood notices, and projects that reach beyond the front door.

A community garden and Green Team give residents hands-on ways to work on shared spaces, and the town has been looking at the future of its community center. Arbor Day gatherings, student scholarships, and the nearby Bladensburg waterfront keep the calendar connected to the wider river corridor. Cottage City is not a stand-alone backwater; it is a compact Maryland municipality with its own local routines, a long Anacostia edge, and Washington-area streets all around it.