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Okefenokee Swamp
A peat-filled blackwater swamp on the Georgia-Florida line
In the Okefenokee, the ground itself can move. Mats of peat break loose from the swamp floor, float to the surface and sprout shrubs and trees, creating islands that quiver underfoot. The swamp covers about 438,000 acres (1,770 km²) of southeastern Georgia and a sliver of northern Florida, the largest blackwater swamp in North America. Its tea-colored water, stained by tannins from decaying plants, sits in a shallow basin behind Trail Ridge, an ancient line of coastal dunes. The name is usually translated as 'land of trembling earth,' though linguists trace it to a Hitchiti phrase meaning bubbling water.
The swamp is the source of two rivers that never meet — the Suwannee, which drains most of it southwest to the Gulf of Mexico, and the St. Marys, which carries the rest to the Atlantic. Loggers stripped much of its cypress in the early 1900s, leaving relics such as the abandoned town site on Billys Island. Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge was created in 1937, and most of it is now federal wilderness. A proposed titanium mine on Trail Ridge drew national opposition until The Conservation Fund bought the 7,700-acre site in 2025. In July 2026 UNESCO inscribed the refuge as Georgia's first World Heritage Site.