The largest state east of the Mississippi River, Georgia is sandwiched between South Carolina and Florida along the Atlantic Coast. Within its borders are pine-clad mountains, swamps, and enchanted islands with sandy beaches. Georgians say their state slopes “from Rabun Gap to Tybee Light” from mountains nearly a mile high to Tybee Lighthouse, which is at sea level.
The nickname Peach State hints at Georgia’s mild climate. The nickname Goober State is, in a way, a symbol of the Coastal Plain that covers so much of the state.
Goober is an African word for peanut, one of Georgia’s most valuable crops. Not really nuts, peanuts are a kind of pea which thrives in the sandy soils of the Coastal Plain. Cotton and tobacco are other Coastal Plain crops associated with Georgia.
The Coastal Plain is an area of low, level land east and south of the Appalachians. It slopes gradually east towards the Atlantic Coast and south towards the Gulf Coast. In fact, the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains meet in Georgia, as they do in Florida. Georgia and Florida together represent the corner of North America’s Atlantic/Gulf Coastal Plain. Together, the coastal plains cover more than half of Georgia.
In the southeast corner of Georgia is the enormous Okefenokee Swamp. It is the most famous example of the numerous wetlands that are found near Georgia’s Atlantic Coast. Here cypress trees wear beards of Spanish moss. Alligators swim through Okefenokee’s tea-colored waters amidst floating mats of grass and flowers. They are among the resident animals that haven’t changed for millions of years.
Offshore, wind and waves have piled sand into a series of barrier, or sea, islands that lie along the entire Georgia coast. Such names as Wolf Island and Blackbeard Island recall the animals that once lived in Georgia, and the pirates that visited the coast. Off the southeast coast of Georgia are the beautiful Golden Isles. Here are found enormous, ancient oak trees with moss-draped branches and the sandy beaches of Cumberland Island National Seashore.
Inland, Georgia is a different place. The state’s largest city, Atlanta rises almost in the shadow of Stone Mountain. The world’s largest isolated block of granite, it rises out of the Piedmont, or foothills of the Appalachians. Stone Mountain is famous for a giant carving that graces it. Among the men depicted on the sculpture is Robert E. Lee, who led Confederate troops during the Civil War.
Beyond the Piedmont, the Appalachian Mountains stretch across the northwestern corner of Georgia. Georgia’s highest mountain is 4,784-foot Brasstown Bald, which rises near the northern border near Rabun Gap. (In the South, high mountains that are treeless on top are sometimes called balds.) The Appalachian Trail begins—or ends—at Springer Mountain, linking Georgia with Maine far to the north.
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism - Paperback
