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The Eastern Continental Divide
The Appalachian line between Atlantic and Gulf waters
The Eastern Continental Divide runs along the crest of the Appalachian Mountains, separating rivers that flow east to the Atlantic Ocean from those that flow west and south to the Gulf of Mexico. It winds from Pennsylvania down through the Appalachians of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia and on into Florida, usually along modest ridgelines rather than dramatic peaks.
Far less famous than the Great Divide of the Rockies, it nonetheless quietly shapes the geography of the eastern states, deciding whether a stream joins the Atlantic seaboard's rivers or feeds the great Gulf-bound systems like the Tennessee and the Mobile. Roads, towns, and trail markers along the Appalachian crest sometimes note where it passes - an invisible line parting the waters of the East. The marker here sits on the divide in the southern Appalachians.