Chattahoochee
Chattahoochee is a mapped river in the YearMaps hydrographic index. River courses organise settlement, agriculture and frontier-making more durably than any political boundary, and this reach is indexed against the dams, lakes and cities within its catchment.
- Feature Class
- River
- Coordinates
- 32.27°, -84.90°
About Chattahoochee
The Chattahoochee River () is a river in the Southeastern United States. It forms the southern half of the Alabama and Georgia border, as well as a portion of the Florida and Georgia border. It is a tributary of the Apalachicola River, a relatively short river formed by the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers and emptying from Florida into Apalachicola Bay in the Gulf of Mexico. The Chattahoochee River is about 430 miles (690 km) long. The Chattahoochee, Flint, and Apalachicola rivers together make up the Apalachicola–Chattahoochee–Flint River Basin (ACF River Basin). The Chattahoochee makes up the largest part of the ACF's drainage basin.
Encyclopedic summary adapted from Wikipedia: Chattahoochee River (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Chattahoochee in Depth
Course
The source of the Chattahoochee River is located in Jacks Gap at the southeastern foot of Jacks Knob, in the very southeastern corner of Union County, in the southern Blue Ridge Mountains, a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains. The headwaters of the river flow south from ridges that form the Tennessee Valley Divide. The Appalachian Trail crosses the river's uppermost headwaters. The Chattahoochee's source and upper course lie within Chattahoochee National Forest.
From its source in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Chattahoochee River flows southwesterly to Atlanta and through its suburbs. It eventually turns due-south to form the southern half of the Georgia/Alabama state line.
History
The current course of the Chattahoochee River has a geologic history that extends back in time at least 100 million years. A Late Cretaceous system of paleovalleys incised into the Coastal Plain unconformity in the vicinity of Columbus, Georgia is infilled with fluvial sands and gravels of the lower Tuscaloosa Formation. Younger rocks of the overlying Eutaw Formation record an estuarine environment in approximately the same location, suggesting a persistent paleodrainage system in the vicinity of the modern Chattahoochee for at least 10-20 million years during the Late Cretaceous.
Sections adapted from Wikipedia: Chattahoochee River (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Chattahoochee: Key Facts
| Length | 702 km |
|---|---|
| Average discharge | 286 m³/s |
| Drainage basin | 22,714 km² |
| Mouth | Apalachicola River |
| Drainage system | Apalachicola River drainage basin |
| Tributaries | Camp Creek, Dog River, Johns Creek, Peachtree Creek, Sope Creek, Soque River, Sweetwater Creek, Upatoi Creek |
Facts from Wikidata Q1068297 (CC0).
Major River Dossiers
Hand-written studies of the great river systems of history.
Connected Reaches
Nearby watercourses in the same drainage network.
Water Bodies in the Catchment
Settlements Along the Reach
Hydraulic Infrastructure Nearby
Surrounding Terrain
Chattahoochee: Quick Answers
- Where is Chattahoochee?
- Chattahoochee is located in United States, at 32.2689° N, 84.8980° W.
- Are there dams on the Chattahoochee?
- No dam on the Chattahoochee is recorded in the YearMaps dam index, which covers major structures only.