Great Appalachian Valley
The Great Appalachian Valley, also called The Great Valley or Great Valley Region, is one of the major landform features of eastern North America. It is a gigantic trough, including a chain of valley lowlands, and the central feature of the Appalachian Mountains system. The trough stretches about 1,200 miles (1,900 km) from Quebec in the north to Alabama in the south and has been an important north–south route of travel since prehistoric times.
In the northern valley, the thoroughfares vary. Heading northeast from Harrisburg, I-81 traces the valley to Swatara Gap, then swings north across Blue Mountain and leaves the valley en route to Scranton. I-78 then continues the route through the valley parallel to the southern slopes of Blue Mountain, connecting Harrisburg with Lebanon, Kutztown, and Allentown. At Allentown, I-78 then swings away south into the hills of the Reading Prong en route to New York City. From Allentown into New Jersey and southern New York, the valley is not traced by an interstate highway, though it is traversed at length (and at oblique angles) by both I-80 and I-84, as well as by the Delaware River between Easton, Pennsylvania, and the Delaware Water Gap.
In New Jersey and New York, the valley gradually bends from the northeast to the north, and starting near Newburgh just beyond the Hudson Highlands, I-87 runs much of the valley's length into Canada, passing Poughkeepsie, Albany, and Glens Falls. In an east–west section of the valley, I-90 traverses the Mohawk Valley towards Utica. North of Glens Falls, I-87 runs west of the valley through the Adirondack Mountains, though it descends back into the valley near Plattsburgh. At the Canada–US border, I-87 becomes Autoroute 15 and continues north to Montreal. No interstate highway crosses the rugged section of the valley east of Lake George or passes through the agriculturally rich Champlain Valley running north to Burlington, Vermont.
Heading north from Burlington, however, along the east side of Lake Champlain, I-89 runs through the valley's northernmost stretches to the Canada–US border, where it becomes Quebec Route 133 and Autoroute 35, which trace the route of the Richelieu River in its southern section, where the Great Valley finally dissipates into the plain of the Saint Lawrence River to the east of Montreal. (The Richelieu River continues northward across the plain and empties into the Saint Lawrence to the northeast of Montreal.)
Culture[edit]
The Great Valley, especially the southern-middle portion, is within the region known as Appalachia.