Piedmont | |
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 The Piedmont in the eastern United States | |
 Interactive map of Piedmont | |
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ThePiedmont (/ˈpiːdmɒnt/PEED-mont)[1] is aplateau region located in theEastern United States. It is situated between theAtlantic Plain and theBlue Ridge Mountains, stretching fromNew York in the north to centralAlabama in the south. ThePiedmont Province is aphysiographic province of the largerAppalachian Highlands physiographic division and consists of the Piedmont Upland, and the Piedmont Lowlands sections.[2][3]
TheAtlantic Seaboard Fall Line marks the Piedmont's eastern boundary with the Coastal Plain. To the west, it is mostly bounded by theBlue Ridge Mountains, the easternmost range of the Appalachians. The width of the Piedmont varies, being quite narrow above theDelaware River but nearly 300 miles (475 km) wide inNorth Carolina. The Piedmont's area is approximately 80,000 square miles (210,000 km2).[4]
TheFrench wordPiedmont (modern spellingPiémont) comes from theItalianPiemonte, fromLatinpedemontium, meaning "foothill" or, literally, "at the foot of the mountains";[1] it is the name ofthe northwestern Italian region abutting theAlps.
The surface relief of the Piedmont is characterized by relatively low, rolling hills with heights abovesea level between 200 feet (50 m) and 800 feet to 1,000 feet (250 m to 300 m). Itsgeology is complex, with numerous rock formations of different materials and ages intermingled with one another. Essentially, the Piedmont is the remnant of several ancientmountain chains that have since been eroded.
Geologists have identified at least five separate events which have led tosediment deposition, including theGrenville orogeny (the collision of continents that created thesupercontinentRodinia) and theAppalachian orogeny during the formation ofPangaea. The last major event in the history of the Piedmont was the break-up of Pangaea, whenNorth America andAfrica began to separate. Largebasins formed from therifting and were filled by the sediments shed from the surrounding higher ground. The series ofMesozoic basins is almost entirely located inside the Piedmont region.
Piedmont soils are generallyclay-like (Ultisols) and moderately fertile. In some areas they have suffered fromerosion and over-cropping, particularly in the South wherecotton was historically the chief crop. In the central Piedmont region of North Carolina andVirginia,tobacco is the main crop, while in the north region there is more diversity, includingorchards,dairying, and generalfarming.[4]
The portion of the Piedmont region in theSouthern United States is closely associated with thePiedmont blues, a style ofblues music that originated there in the late 19th century. According to the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society, most Piedmont blues musicians came from Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. During theGreat Migration, African Americans migrated to the Piedmont. With the Appalachian Mountains to the west, those who might otherwise have spread into rural areas stayed in cities and were thus exposed to a broader mixture of music than those in, for example, the rural Mississippi delta. Thus, Piedmont blues was influenced by many types of music, such asragtime, country, and popular songs — styles that had comparatively less influence on blues music in other regions.[5]
Many major cities are located on theAtlantic Seaboard fall line, the eastern boundary of the Piedmont. (In Georgia and Alabama, where the Piedmont runs mostly east to west, the fall line is its southern boundary.) The fall line, where the land rises abruptly from the coastal plain, marks the limit of navigability on many major rivers, so inland ports sprang up along it.
Within the Piedmont region itself, there are several areas of urban concentration, the largest being theAtlanta metropolitan area in Georgia. The Piedmont cutsMaryland in half, covering theBaltimore–Washington metropolitan area. InVirginia, theGreater Richmond metropolitan area is the largest urban concentration. In North Carolina, thePiedmont Crescent includes several metropolitan clusters such asCharlotte metropolitan area, thePiedmont Triad, and theResearch Triangle. Other notable areas include theGreenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, SC Combined Statistical Area in South Carolina, and thePhiladelphia metropolitan area in Pennsylvania.
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