| French Broad River | |
| Map: | Frenchbroadrivermap.png |
| Subdivision Type1: | Country |
| Subdivision Name1: | United States |
| Subdivision Type2: | State |
| Subdivision Name2: | North Carolina, Tennessee |
| Length: | 219miles |
| Discharge1 Location: | Riverdale, Tennessee, 7.5miles above the mouth(mean for water years 1945–1983)[1] |
| Discharge1 Min: | 67cuft/sOctober 1953 |
| Discharge1 Avg: | 7878cuft/s(mean for water years 1945–1983) |
| Discharge1 Max: | 160000cuft/sJuly 1867 |
| Source1: | North Fork French Broad River |
| Source1 Location: | Transylvania County, North Carolina |
| Source1 Coordinates: | 35.2658°N -82.8889°W[2] |
| Source1 Elevation: | 3189feet |
| Source2: | West Fork French Broad River |
| Source2 Location: | Transylvania County, North Carolina |
| Source2 Coordinates: | 35.1858°N -82.9836°W |
| Source2 Elevation: | 3440feet |
| Source Confluence Location: | Rosman, North Carolina |
| Source Confluence Coordinates: | 35.1425°N -82.8386°W[3] |
| Source Confluence Elevation: | 2195feet |
| Mouth: | Tennessee River |
| Mouth Location: | Knoxville, Tennessee |
| Mouth Coordinates: | 35.9592°N -83.85°W |
| Mouth Elevation: | 814feet |
| Progression: | French Broad → Tennessee → Ohio → Mississippi |
| Basin Size: | 5124sqmi[4] |
| Tributaries Left: | Pigeon River, Little Pigeon River |
| Tributaries Right: | Swannanoa River, Nolichucky River |
The French Broad River is a river in the U.S. states of North Carolina and Tennessee. It flows from near the town of Rosman in Transylvania County, North Carolina, into Tennessee, where its confluence with the Holston River at Knoxville forms the beginning of the Tennessee River. The river flows through the counties of Transylvania, Buncombe, Henderson, and Madison in North Carolina, and Cocke, Jefferson, Sevier, and Knox in Tennessee. It drains large portions of the Pisgah National Forest and the Cherokee National Forest.
The headwaters of the French Broad River are near the town of Rosman in Transylvania County, North Carolina, just northwest of the Eastern Continental Divide near the northwest border of South Carolina. They spill from a 50-foot waterfall called Courthouse Falls at the terminus of Courthouse Creek near Balsam Grove. The waterfall feeds into a creek that becomes the North Fork, which joins the West Fork west of Rosman. South of Rosman, the stream is joined by the Middle and East forks to form the French Broad River.
From there it flows northeast through the Appalachian Mountains into Henderson, and Buncombe counties. In Buncombe County, the river flows through Asheville where it receives the water of the Swannanoa River. Downstream of Asheville, the river passes north through Marshall and Madison County. After passing through Hot Springs in the Bald Mountains, the river enters Cocke County, Tennessee.
In Cocke County, the river passes through Del Rio and receives the waters of both the Pigeon and the Nolichucky rivers northwest of Newport. The river enters the slack waters of Douglas Lake, which was created by the Tennessee Valley Authority's Douglas Dam in Sevier County, approximately 32miles upstream from the river's mouth. Near Sevierville, at Kodak, the French Broad River receives the flow of the Little Pigeon River, which drains much of the Tennessee section of the Great Smoky Mountains. After flowing through a wide gap in Bays Mountain, it enters Knox County. Its confluence with the Holston River forms the Tennessee River at a place known as "Forks of the River", at the eastern edge of Knoxville.
The French Broad River is believed to be one of the oldest in the world, cutting over eons through ancient rocks in the Southern Appalachian Mountains.[5] The French Broad predates the Alleghanian orogeny, through the resulting mountains it cuts; however, the current topographic relief of the Southern Appalachians is relatively new, making it virtually impossible to estimate the age of the river.[6]
The Cherokee people, the historic Indigenous Americans who occupied the area at the time of European encounter, referred to the river by different names: Poelico and Agiqua ("broad") in the mountains of the headwaters; Zillicoah upriver of the confluence at present-day Asheville; and Tahkeeosteh (racing waters) from Asheville downriver.[7] The river is considered to roughly mark the eastern boundary of the Cherokee homelands in this region, which included areas of present-day northwestern South Carolina, northeastern Georgia, and southeastern Tennessee. The French called the river the Agiqua, borrowing one of the Cherokee names.
Initiated as a project during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Douglas Dam was completed in the 1940s on the lower French Broad by the TVA to provide electricity and flood control. It is one of the larger TVA developments on a tributary of the Tennessee River. (The two other very large ones are Norris Lake on the Clinch River and Cherokee Lake on the Holston River.)
In 1987, the North Carolina General Assembly established the French Broad River State Trail as a blueway which follows the river for 117miles. The paddle trail is a part of the North Carolina State Trails System, which is a section of the NC Division of Parks and Recreation. A system of launch point sites was created along the river to support the trail.
The portion of the French Broad River in Tennessee was designated as a state scenic river by the Tennessee Scenic Rivers Act of 1968. Approximately of the river in Cocke County, starting at the North Carolina border and extending downstream to the place where it flows into Douglas Lake, are designated as a Class III, Partially Developed River.
The following is a list of crossings of the French Broad from Brevard to the confluence with the Tennessee River.