Chevy Chase, MD

Chevy Chase () is the colloquial name of an area that includes a town, several incorporated villages, and an unincorporated census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland; and one adjoining neighborhood in northwest Washington, D.C. Most derive from a late-19th-century effort to create a new suburb that its developer dubbed Chevy Chase after a colonial land patent. Primarily residential, Chevy Chase adjoins Friendship Heights, a popular shopping district. It is the home of the Chevy Chase Club and Columbia Country Club, private clubs whose members include many prominent politicians and Washingtonians. According to 2008-12 data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, Chevy Chase was the "most educated town in America" with over 93 percent of adult residents having at least a bachelor's degree, and tied for the "most affluent town in America" with median income of greater than $250,000.The name is derived from Cheivy Chace, the name of the land patented to Colonel Joseph Belt from Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, on July 10, 1725. It has historic associations with a 1388 chevauchée, a French word describing a border raid, fought by Lord Percy of England and Earl Douglas of Scotland over hunting grounds, or a "chace", in the Cheviot Hills of Northumberland and Otterburn. The battle was memorialized in "The Ballad of Chevy Chase".