Tennessee River

The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 652 miles long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names, as many of the Cherokee people had their homelands along its banks, especially in what are now eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama. In addition, its tributary the Little Tennessee River, extended into Western North Carolina and northeastern Georgia, also part of the people's homelands. Its current name is derived from the Cherokee town, Tanasi.
The Tennessee River is formed at the confluence of the Holston and French Broad rivers in present-day Knoxville, Tennessee. From Knoxville, it flows southwest through East Tennessee into Chattanooga before crossing into Alabama. It travels through the Huntsville and Decatur area before reaching the Muscle Shoals area, and eventually forms a small part of the state's border with Mississippi, before returning to Tennessee. The river misses Georgia by about 250 feet. The Tennessee river’s route northerly through Tennessee defines the boundary between two of Tennessee's Grand Divisions: Middle and West Tennessee.

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