Appalachian Mountains

The southernmost end of the Appalachians lies in the state of Alabama (U.S. state), it crosses portions of Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York state, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Quebec, New Brunswick, Anticosti Island and Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Appalachian Mountains are a chain of mountains found in North America, near its east coast. While most maps of the Appalachians, from the United States, show the chain's end in Maine (the most northeastern state in the United States), the mountain chain also extends into Quebec's Gaspe peninsula, the western edge of New Brunswick, and the western shore of the Island of Newfoundland.

The chain formed through the collision of continental plates, approximately 500 million years ago.

As an older chain than the Rocky Mountains, and the Himalayas, the Appalachian mountains are generally lower and not as imposing, but the rugged, steep, bunched-up formations, typically at around 5000', formed a barrier to European settlers hoping to move west in the early days of theUnited States. The highest peak in the chain is Mount Mitchell in North Carolina at 6,684 feet above sea level.

In 1775 Daniel Boone led an expedition to blaze a trail across the Cumberland Gap. Forty years later a more practical route across the Appalachians was developed when a canal was built through the Mohawk Valley, across New York State, to Buffalo, New York, at the eastern tip of Lake Erie.