The Apalachicola River is a river, approximately 160 mi (180 km) long in the state of

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. The river's large watershed, known as the

ACF River Basin The ACF River Basin is the drainage basin, or watershed, of the Apalachicola River, Chattahoochee River, and Flint River, in the Southeastern United States. This area is alternatively known as simply the Apalachicola Basin and is listed by t ...

, drains an area of approximately into the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

. The distance to its farthest head waters in northeast

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

is approximately 500 miles (800 km). Its name comes from the

Apalachicola people Apalachicola (sometimes Palachacola) was the name of a Native American town and chiefdom, and of the people living in it, and of a group of towns associated with it, located along the lower part of the Chattahoochee River in present-day Alabama ...

, who used to live along the river.

Description

The river is formed on the state line between Florida and Georgia, near the town of

Chattahoochee, Florida Chattahoochee is a city in Gadsden County, Florida, United States. Its history dates to the Spanish era. The population was 3,652 as of the 2010 census, up from 3,287 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Tallahassee, Florida Metropolitan Statist ...

, approximately northeast of

Panama City Panama City ( es, Ciudad de Panamá, links=no; ), also known as Panama (or Panamá in Spanish), is the capital and largest city of Panama. It has an urban population of 880,691, with over 1.5 million in its metropolitan area. The city is locat ...

, by the confluence of the

Flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...

and

Chattahoochee The Chattahoochee River forms the southern half of the Alabama and Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia border, as well as a portion of the Florida - Georgia border. It is a tributary of the Apalachicola River, a relatively short river formed by the con ...

rivers. The actual confluence is contained within the

Lake Seminole Lake Seminole is a reservoir located in the southwest corner of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia along its border with Florida, maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Chattahoochee River, Chattahoochee and Flint River (Georgia), Flint ri ...

reservoir formed by the

Jim Woodruff Dam Jim Woodruff Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Apalachicola River, about south of that river's origin at the confluence of the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers. The dam impounds Lake Seminole on the common border of Florida and Georgia. The da ...

. It flows generally south through the forests of the

Florida Panhandle The Florida Panhandle (also West Florida and Northwest Florida) is the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Florida; it is a Salient (geography), salient roughly long and wide, lying between Alabama on the north and the west, Georgia (U. ...

, past

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

. In northern Gulf County, it receives the

Chipola River The Chipola River is a tributary of the Apalachicola River in western Florida. It is part of the ACF River Basin watershed. The U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 15 ...

from the west. It flows into

Apalachicola Bay Apalachicola may refer to: * Apalachicola people, a group of Native Americans who lived along the Apalachicola River in present-day Florida Places *Apalachicola, Florida *Apalachicola River *Apalachicola Bay *Apalachicola National Forest *Apalachi ...

, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, at

Apalachicola, Florida Apalachicola ( ) is a city and the county seat of Franklin County, Florida, United States, on the shore of Apalachicola Bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico. The population was 2,231 at the 2010 census. History The Apalachicola people, after ...

. The lower of the river is surrounded by extensive

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

s and

wetlands A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

, except at the coast. The watershed contains nationally significant forests, with some of the highest biological diversity east of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

and rivaling that of the

Great Smoky Mountains The Great Smoky Mountains (, ''Equa Dutsusdu Dodalv'') are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee–North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains, and form part of the Blue Ridge ...

. It has significant areas of

temperate deciduous forest Temperate deciduous or temperate broad-leaf forests are a variety of temperate forest 'dominated' by trees that lose their leaves each year. They are found in areas with warm moist summers and cool winters. The six major areas of this forest type ...

as well as

longleaf pine The longleaf pine (''Pinus palustris'') is a pine species native to the Southeastern United States, found along the coastal plain from East Texas to southern Virginia, extending into northern and central Florida. In this area it is also known as ...

landscapes and

flatwoods Flatwoods, pineywoods, pine savannas and longleaf pine-wiregrass ecosystem are terms that refer to an ecological community in the southeastern coastal plain of North America. Flatwoods are an ecosystem maintained by wildfire or prescribed fire an ...

. Flooded areas have significant tracts of floodplain forest. All of these southeastern forest types were devastated by logging between 1880 and 1920, and the Apalachicola contains some of the finest remaining examples of old growth forest in the southeast. The endangered tree species

Florida torreya ''Torreya taxifolia'', commonly known as Florida torreya or stinking-cedar, but also sometimes as Florida nutmeg or gopher wood, is an endangered subcanopy tree of the yew family, Taxaceae. It is native to only a small glacial refugium in the s ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the region; it clings to forested slopes and bluffs in

Torreya State Park Torreya State Park is a 13,735 acre (56 km²) Florida State Park, United States National Natural Landmark and historic site thirteen miles (19 km) north of Bristol. It is located north of S.R 12 on the Apalachicola River, in northwest ...

along the east bank of the river. The highest point within the watershed is

Blood Mountain Blood Mountain is the highest peak on the Georgia section of the Appalachian Trail and the sixth-tallest mountain in Georgia, with an elevation of .Brown (1996), p.93 It is located on the border of Lumpkin County with Union County and is withi ...

at , near the headwaters of the Chattahoochee River. Where the river enters the

, it creates a rich array of wetlands varying in salinity. These include

tidal marsh A tidal marsh (also known as a type of "tidal wetland") is a marsh found along rivers, coasts and estuaries which floods and drains by the tidal movement of the adjacent estuary, sea or ocean. Tidal marshes are commonly zoned into lower marshes ( ...

es and

seagrass meadow A seagrass meadow or seagrass bed is an underwater ecosystem formed by seagrasses. Seagrasses are marine (saltwater) plants found in shallow coastal waters and in the brackish waters of estuaries. Seagrasses are flowering plants with stems and ...

s. Over of this diverse delta complex are included within the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve. There are also dunes with coastal grasslands and interdunal swales. Torreya Park Apalachicola River pano02

The basin of the Apalachicola River is also noted for its

Tupelo honey ''Tupelo Honey'' is the fifth studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It was released in October 1971 by Warner Bros. Records. Morrison had written all of the songs on the album in Woodstock, New York, before his move to ...

, a high-quality

monofloral honey Monofloral honey is a type of honey which has a distinctive flavor or other attribute due to its being predominantly from the nectar of a single plant species. It is stored and labeled separately so as to command a premium price. While there may ...

, which is produced wherever the

tupelo Tupelo , genus ''Nyssa'' , is a small genus of deciduous trees with alternate, simple leaves. It is sometimes included in the subfamily Nyssoideae of the dogwood family, Cornaceae, but is placed by other authorities in the family Nyssaceae. In ...

trees bloom in the

southeastern United States The Southeastern United States, also referred to as the American Southeast or simply the Southeast, is a geographical region of the United States. It is located broadly on the eastern portion of the southern United States and the southern por ...

. In a good harvest year, the value of the tupelo honey crop produced by a group of specialized Florida beekeepers approaches $900,000 each spring. During Florida's British colonial period, the river formed the boundary between

East Florida East Florida ( es, Florida Oriental) was a colony of Great Britain from 1763 to 1783 and a province of Spanish Florida from 1783 to 1821. Great Britain gained control of the long-established Spanish colony of ''La Florida'' in 1763 as part of ...

and

West Florida West Florida ( es, Florida Occidental) was a region on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico that underwent several boundary and sovereignty changes during its history. As its name suggests, it was formed out of the western part of former S ...

. Geologically, the river links the coastal plain and

Gulf Coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Texas, Louisiana, Mississ ...

with the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

. Some of the remaining important areas of natural habitat along the river include

Apalachicola National Forest The Apalachicola National Forest is the largest U.S. National Forest in the state of Florida. It encompasses and is the only national forest located in the Florida Panhandle. The National Forest provides water and land-based outdoors activities ...

, Torreya State Park,

The Nature Conservancy The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US. Founded in 1951, The Natu ...

Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve,

Tates Hell State Forest Tate's Hell State Forest is 202,000 acres (819 km²) of land in Franklin County, Florida, Franklin and Liberty County, Florida, Liberty counties in Florida. The forest is located near Carrabelle, Florida, Carrabelle off U.S. Route 98 in Florid ...

, and Apalachicola River Wildlife and Environmental Area, as well as the Apalachicola River Water Management Area. It has been suggested that this watershed should be nationally ranked and appreciated as being as significant as the

Everglades The Everglades is a natural region of tropical climate, tropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin within the Neotropical realm. The system begins near Orland ...

or Great Smoky Mountains. To raise awareness about the importance of preserving the natural state of the river and its inhabitants, Florida film producer

Elam Stoltzfus Elam S. Stoltzfus (born 1957) is an American environmental documentary filmmaker. Early life Stoltzfus was born into an Amish family of nine in Pennsylvania in 1957. During his later teens Elam left the Amish community, purchased a car and a ca ...

highlighted this system in a 2006 documentary broadcast on PBS. The river forms the boundary between the Eastern and Central time zones in Florida, until it reaches the Jackson River. Thereafter, the Jackson River, which flows to the Gulf of Mexico, is the time zone boundary.49 C.F.R. § 71.5(f).

List of crossings

References

External links

National Estuarine Research Reserve
, US Army Corps of Engineers
Apalachicola River Ecological Management Plan
(archived), Florida State University
Apalachicola River Watershed
(archived), protectingourwater.org
Apalachicola River Wildlife and Environmental Area
at myfwc.com
Apalachicola Riverkeeper
an organization focused on the protection of the Apalachicola
Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve
at nature.org

(archived) * {{authority control * Drainage basins of the Gulf of Mexico Outstanding Florida Waters Rivers of Florida Apalachicola National Forest Bodies of water of Gulf County, Florida Bodies of water of Gadsden County, Florida Bodies of water of Jackson County, Florida Bodies of water of Liberty County, Florida Rivers of Franklin County, Florida

Description

List of crossings

See also

References

Further reading

External links