Just where is Appalachia?

This question was sparked by an article that appeared recently in the Morehead News, a bi-weekly newspaper serving Morehead and Rowan County, Kentucky. The article stated that Elizabethtown, KY, had been declared eligible for funding from The Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal agency established by law in 1965 to counteract the effects of high unemployment in Appalachian counties. The terrain around Elizabethtown isn't exactly what one would think of as mountains. Nor has its economy historically been characteristic of Appalachia. But such have been political decisions, what we used to call pork barrel politics. Anything more I say will turn this into a rant, and that's not on my agenda today.

From the beginning, the area included within the jurisdiction of the Appalachian Regional Commission ranged beyond what anyone would likely consider to be mountainous to include pockets of poverty in contiguous states. Northeast Mississippi is the example that jumps out at the casual observer. Perhaps less obvious is all that was left out of the Appalachian Regional Commission mandate.

Wikicommons - Public Domain

A map of the Appalachian Mountains clearly shows that they range on up through New York and New England into Canada. Even the Appalachian Trail runs some 2,200 miles from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Mt. Katahdin, Maine. So technically, Appalachia extends all the way from north Alabama to Canada. In fact, these mountains are so old they date back to Pangea, when all of the continents were clustered together. This mountain range not only passes through Canada, but picks up again in the British Isles, passing through Ireland and Scotland and continuing into Scandinavia. A tell-tale mineral, serpentine, follows the complete chain to verify that it was once connected.

So when I think of Appalachia, I'm thinking of the second map, not the first. To me, Appalachia means mountains, or at least true hill country, not a social, economic, or political construct. And the Appalachia I know best lies in five states, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina.

This is my Appalachia,

and this isn't (although I love the Bluegrass, too).