Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Shenandoah River

Encyclopedia : S : SH : SHE : Shenandoah River


Shenandoah River Watershed
Enlarge
Shenandoah River Watershed

Canoeing on the Shenandoah River, near Winchester, Virginia
Enlarge
Canoeing on the Shenandoah River, near Winchester, Virginia

This article is about the river in Virginia in the United States. For other uses, see Shenandoah (disambiguation)
The Shenandoah River is a tributary of the Potomac River, approximately 150 mi (241 km) long, in the U.S. states of Virginia and West Virginia. The principal tributary of the Potomac, the river and its tributaries drain several lateral valleys in the Appalachians on the west side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, mostly in northwestern Virginia.

It is formed near Front Royal by the confluence of South Fork (the longer branch) and North Fork. It flows northeast across Warren and Clarke counties, then into West Virginia, crossing the extreme eastern tip of the state. It joins the Potomac from the south near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

The Shenandoah valley is underlain by limestone. The fertile soil made it a favored place for early settlement and it continues to be a major agricultural area of Virginia and West Virginia. Some karst topography is evident and Luray Caverns near Front Royal is a popular tourist attraction.

See also

 


From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: