What are the Appalachian Mountains?

The Appalachian Mountains are the major mountain range of the eastern United States and Canada, extending about 1,500 miles from central Alabama north through Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, then continuing into the Canadian provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland. The Appalachians are an old, eroded mountain system, formed during the Alleghenian Orogeny between roughly 325 and 260 million years ago, when the supercontinent Pangaea assembled. They were once as tall as the Himalayas but have eroded over hundreds of millions of years to their current rounded, forested profiles. The highest peak is Mount Mitchell in North Carolina at 6,684 feet, which is also the highest point in the eastern United States.

The range comprises several subranges: the Notre Dame Mountains in Quebec; the White Mountains of New Hampshire (with Mount Washington at 6,288 feet, famous for extreme weather); the Green Mountains of Vermont; the Berkshires of western Massachusetts; the Taconics along the New York-Massachusetts border; the Catskills of New York; the Allegheny Mountains running from Pennsylvania through Maryland and West Virginia; the Blue Ridge Mountains running from Pennsylvania through Maryland, Virginia, and into Georgia; the Great Smoky Mountains on the Tennessee-North Carolina border; and the Cumberland Plateau and Cumberland Mountains in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia.

The Appalachian Trail, completed in 1937, runs about 2,194 miles along the spine of the range from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mount Katahdin, Maine. About 3 million people hike portions of the trail each year, and several thousand attempt to thru-hike the entire route, taking about five to seven months.

The Appalachians have shaped American settlement and culture profoundly. The range was the western boundary of the original 13 colonies until the Treaty of Paris of 1783 transferred the territory between the Appalachians and the Mississippi to the new United States. Daniel Boone led settlers through the Cumberland Gap in 1775, opening the way to Kentucky. Mountain communities developed distinctive Appalachian English, folk music, and culture that drew on Scots-Irish, English, German, and African American sources.

The range contains rich coal deposits that fueled industrial development, particularly in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania, although coal mining has produced severe environmental and social problems. Major cities along or near the Appalachians include Atlanta, Knoxville, Asheville, Roanoke, Charleston (West Virginia), Pittsburgh, Albany, and Burlington. National parks include Great Smoky Mountains (the most visited national park), Shenandoah, Acadia, and parts of others.