Landforms
Tennessee is mountainous in the east, as parts of the Appalachian Mountain system cover the land.
The Great Smoky Mountains, as well as the Bald, Holston, Stone, Unaka and Unicoi mountain ranges form most of its border with North Carolina. Both states share the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Clingmans Dome (6,643 ft.) the state's highest point, is located here. It's the third highest point in the Appalachian Mountain range. Only Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina (6,684 feet), and Mt. Craig (6,647) in Mt. Mitchell State Park rise higher.
To the immediate west of those mountains, the Appalachian Valley is a series of lower ridges, hills, and fertile farmland.
The Cumberland Plateau (or Appalachian Plateau), is a stretch of somewhat flat hills and mountains, with a few near 2,500 ft.
West of that plateau, the land flattens, and slopes down into a large, fertile basin, to the east of Nashville.
The Gulf Coastal Plain extends across the southern states into the western third of Tennessee; it begins as hilly land, west of the Tennessee River, that slowly levels-out as it approaches the state's western edge. In the southeastern corner (near Memphis) it becomes a swampy lowland flood plain that ends along the steep bluffs fronting the Mississippi River.
Significant lakes (some used as storage basins) cross the state, and Kentucky Lake is the largest man-made lake in the eastern United States.
In this state of rivers, major ones include the Cumberland, Tennessee, and of course, the Mississippi. The Tennessee River Gorge, a river canyon bordering the Chattanooga metro, is 26 miles in length.
