The Appalachian Mountains

The Appalachian Mountains run about 1,500 miles down the eastern side of North America, from Canada through New England and the Mid-Atlantic to Alabama. They are among the oldest mountains on Earth — once, hundreds of millions of years ago, they rose as high as the Alps or Himalayas, but eons of erosion have worn them into the rounded, forested ridges seen today. Their highest summit, Mount Mitchell in North Carolina at 6,684 feet (2,037 m), is the loftiest point east of the Mississippi.

The range is really a series of parallel belts — the Blue Ridge, the folded ridge-and-valley country, and the Appalachian Plateau — formed when ancient continents collided and crumpled the rock. For early America the Appalachians were a formidable barrier, channeling settlement and holding back westward expansion until passes and river gaps were found. Coal seams within the plateau later powered the nation's industry, and the long green spine still defines the eastern interior.

• Great Smoky Mountains National Park
  The most visited national park in the country protected in
• Shenandoah National Park
  A long ribbon of the Blue Ridge in Virginia protected in
• Appalachia
  The mountain cultural region of the eastern interior related
• North Carolina
  The Tar Heel State, from the Blue Ridge to the Outer Banks runs through