Land Cover of the Appalachians & Ohio Valley Fine Art Print Map

The Appalachian Mountains continue on to the north and east beyond the limits of this map— see our North Atlantic Region map. The coverage shown here includes the all great river systems that rise in these mountains, and nearly of its high ridges. The Ohio River, somewhat greater in volume than the middle Mississippi where the two meet, collects most of the Appalachian drainage.

The courses of Appalachian rivers were puzzling to early American mappers confronted by streams rising far beyond the ridges which were supposed to contain them, and which reversed directions unexpectedly. (The Tennessee Valley Authority’s many dammed lakes can be similarly confusing). Geologists refer to the successive provinces, from east to west, as the Piedmont, the Blue Ridge, the Ridge and Valley, and the Appalachian Plateau. This last wide belt of low but often steep hill country covers most of southeastern Ohio and southeastern Kentucky.