geo.wikisort.org - River

Search / Calendar

The French Broad River is a river in the U.S. states of North Carolina and Tennessee. It flows 218 miles (351 km)[4] from near the town of Rosman in Transylvania County, North Carolina, into Tennessee, where its confluence with the Holston River at Knoxville forms the beginning of the Tennessee River. The river flows through the counties of Transylvania, Buncombe, Henderson, and Madison in North Carolina, and Cocke, Jefferson, Sevier, and Knox in Tennessee. It drains large portions of the Pisgah National Forest and the Cherokee National Forest.

This article is about the river west of the Eastern Continental Divide (ECD) in western North Carolina. For the similarly named river in western North Carolina east of the ECD, see Broad River (Carolinas).
French Broad River
French Broad River in Henderson County, North Carolina
French Broad River watershed
Location
CountryUnited States
StateNorth Carolina, Tennessee
Physical characteristics
SourceNorth Fork French Broad River
 • locationTransylvania County, North Carolina
 • coordinates35°15′57″N 82°53′20″W[1][2]
 • elevation3,189 ft (972 m)
2nd sourceWest Fork French Broad River
 • locationTransylvania County, North Carolina
 • coordinates35°11′09″N 82°59′01″W[3]
 • elevation3,440 ft (1,050 m)
Source confluence 
 • locationRosman, North Carolina
 • coordinates35°08′33″N 82°50′19″W[4][5]
 • elevation2,195 ft (669 m)
MouthTennessee River
 • location
Knoxville, Tennessee
 • coordinates
35°57′33″N 83°51′0″W[5]
 • elevation
814 ft (248 m)[5]
Length219 mi (352 km)[4]
Basin size5,124 sq mi (13,270 km2)[6]
Discharge 
 • locationRiverdale, Tennessee, 7.5 miles (12.1 km) above the mouth(mean for water years 1945–1983)[7]
 • average7,878 cu ft/s (223.1 m3/s)(mean for water years 1945–1983)[7]
 • minimum67 cu ft/s (1.9 m3/s)October 1953[7]
 • maximum160,000 cu ft/s (4,500 m3/s)July 1867[7]
Basin features
ProgressionFrench Broad → Tennessee → Ohio → Mississippi
Tributaries 
 • leftPigeon River, Little Pigeon River
 • rightSwannanoa River, Nolichucky River

Course


The headwaters of the French Broad River are near the town of Rosman in Transylvania County, North Carolina, just northwest of the Eastern Continental Divide near the northwest border of South Carolina. They spill from a 50-foot waterfall called Courthouse Falls at the terminus of Courthouse Creek near Balsam Grove. The waterfall feeds into a creek that becomes the North Fork, which joins the West Fork west of Rosman. South of Rosman, the stream is joined by the Middle and East forks to form the French Broad River.

From there it flows northeast through the Appalachian Mountains into Henderson, and Buncombe counties. In Buncombe County, the river flows through the city of Asheville, where it receives the water of the Swannanoa River. Downstream of Asheville, the river passes north through Madison County, where the county seat, Marshall, developed along the river. After passing through the mountain resort of Hot Springs in the Bald Mountains, the river enters Cocke County, Tennessee.

In Cocke County, the river passes through the community of Del Rio, and receives the waters of both the Pigeon and the Nolichucky rivers northwest of Cocke's county seat, Newport. The river enters the slack waters of Douglas Lake, which was created by the Tennessee Valley Authority's Douglas Dam in Sevier County, approximately 32 miles (51 km) upstream from the river's mouth. Near Sevierville, at Kodak, the French Broad River receives the flow of the Little Pigeon River, which drains much of the Tennessee section of the Great Smoky Mountains. After flowing through a wide gap in Bays Mountain, it enters Knox County. Its confluence with the Holston River forms the Tennessee River at a place known as "Forks of the River", at the eastern edge of present-day Knoxville.


Major tributaries



History


The French Broad River is believed to be one of the oldest in the world, cutting over geologic eons through ancient rocks in the Southern Appalachian Mountains.[8] However, the current topographic relief of the Southern Appalachians is relatively new, making it virtually impossible to estimate the age of the river.[9]

The nearby Broad River was originally named the "English Broad River".

The Cherokee people, the historic Indigenous Americans who occupied this area at the time of European encounter, referred to the river by different names: Poelico and Agiqua ("broad") in the mountains of the headwaters; Zillicoah upriver of the confluence at present-day Asheville; and Tahkeeosteh (racing waters) from Asheville downriver.[10] The river is considered to roughly mark the eastern boundary of the Cherokee homelands in this region, which included areas of present-day northwestern South Carolina, northeastern Georgia, and southeastern Tennessee. The French called the river the Agiqua, borrowing one of the Cherokee names.

Initiated as a project during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Douglas Dam was completed in the 1940s on the lower French Broad by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to provide electricity and flood control. It is one of the larger TVA developments on a tributary of the Tennessee River. (The two other very large ones are Norris Lake on the Clinch River and Cherokee Lake on the Holston River.)

In 1987, the North Carolina General Assembly established the French Broad River State Trail as a blueway which follows the river for 117 miles (188 km).[11] The paddle trail is a part of the North Carolina State Trails System, which is a section of the NC Division of Parks and Recreation. A system of launch point sites was created along the river to support the trail.

The portion of the French Broad River in Tennessee was designated as a state scenic river by the Tennessee Scenic Rivers Act of 1968. Approximately 33 miles (53 km) of the river in Cocke County, starting at the North Carolina border and extending downstream to the place where it flows into Douglas Lake, are designated as a Class III, Partially Developed River.

French Broad River as seen from the Appalachian Trail in May 2007
French Broad River as seen from the Appalachian Trail in May 2007

Crossings


The following is a partial list of crossings of the French Broad from Brevard to the confluence with the Tennessee River.


North Carolina



Tennessee



Further reading


Wilma Dykeman wrote the book The French Broad (1955) about the river. The book brought public attention to concerns about the polluted condition of parts of the river. The river is also the subject of the monograph Watershed: The French Broad River (2012) by Jeff Rich.


See also



References


  1. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: North Fork French Broad River
  2. John Hairr, North Carolina Rivers: Facts, Legend, and Lore (History Press, 2007), p. 90.
  3. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: West Fork French Broad River
  4. U.S. Geological Survey. Rosman, NC. 1:24,000.
  5. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: French Broad River
  6. U.S. Geological Survey, "Introduction to the Upper Tennessee River Basin," 11 January 2013. Accessed: 31 May 2015.
  7. United States Geological Survey, Water Resources Data Tennessee: Water Year 1983, Water Data Report TN-83-1, p. 116.
  8. Boyle, John (August 2, 2018). "Answer Man: Is the French Broad one of the world's oldest rivers?". Asheville Citizen-Times. Retrieved August 3, 2018.
  9. "Researchers Find Evidence of Geological 'Facelift' in the Appalachians". NC State News. Retrieved Oct 19, 2020.
  10. French Broad River, Blue Ridge National Heritage Area
  11. "Size of the North Carolina State Parks System" (XLS). North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation. January 1, 2019. Archived from the original on July 21, 2019. Retrieved July 21, 2019.



На других языках

[de] French Broad River

Der French Broad River ist der 376 km lange linke Quellfluss des Tennessee Rivers in North Carolina. Im Zusammenfluss mit dem Holston River bildet er ab Knoxville den Tennessee River. Er ist einer der beiden breiten Flüsse im Westen von North Carolina und befand sich ursprünglich auf französischem Territorium. Der zweite große Fluss, auf englischem Gebiet, wurde English Broad River (heute nur mehr Broad River) genannt. Der Fluss entspringt in den Blue Ridge Mountains auf der Westseite der östlichen nordamerikanischen Wasserscheide und fließt dann Richtung Nordwesten. Er durchquert dabei einen Appalachen-Hauptkamm. Daraus lässt sich schließen, dass der Fluss schon vor der Entstehung des Gebirges existierte und die allmähliche Hebung durch weitere Eintiefung kompensieren konnte. Der Fluss ist ein raschfließender Gebirgsfluss, der für Wassersportarten wie Kajakfahren oder Rafting genutzt wird. Größter Ort am Fluss ist Asheville, wo dieser den Swannanoa River aufnimmt. Am Unterlauf des Flusses befindet sich der Douglas Damm, der zur Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) gehört, einem Verbund von Fluss-Kraftwerken, der während des Zweiten Weltkrieges eingerichtet wurde, um die Energie für die Urananreicherung (für den Atombombenbau) in Oak Ridge zu liefern. Ein Stück vor dem Zusammenfluss befindet sich das Naturschutzgebiet Seven Islands.
- [en] French Broad River

[ru] Френч-Брод-Ривер

Френч-Брод-Ривер[1] (англ. French Broad River) — река в США. Протекает по территории штатов Северная Каролина и Теннесси[2].


Текст в блоке "Читать" взят с сайта "Википедия" и доступен по лицензии Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike; в отдельных случаях могут действовать дополнительные условия.

Другой контент может иметь иную лицензию. Перед использованием материалов сайта WikiSort.org внимательно изучите правила лицензирования конкретных элементов наполнения сайта.

2019-2024
WikiSort.org - проект по пересортировке и дополнению контента Википедии