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The Southeastern Piedmont and Coastal Plain. Piedmont. Older land, maturely dissected combination of metamorphic rocks Remnants of former-prominent range of mountains Worn down to a smooth-rolling surface. The Fall Line.
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Piedmont • Older land, • maturely dissected combination of metamorphic rocks • Remnants of former-prominent range of mountains • Worn down to a smooth-rolling surface
The Fall Line • Marked by waterfalls and rapids on all streams flowing from Piedmont to Coastal Plain • Limited settlement in Colonial times • Limited urban growth to the west. • Fall Line cities sprang up • Trading and market centers for backcountry
Crops/Economy • Tobacco was the means to wealth in Virginia • Common preoccupation of hundreds of Englishmen settling in the Virginia Colony
Crops/Economy • Nearly every city on the Carolina Piedmont campaigned to finance Textile mills in 1880’s • Growing demand for employment attracted young white men from the countryside into to towns • Growing textile demands • Increased immigration • North Carolina population nearly doubles between 1880-1920
Crops/Economy • Beginning in the 1960’s, textile and apparel industries leave • Globalization • Cheap labor
Modern • High-tech industries have appeared in Piedmont region recently. • Dispersed urban form is now an urban-industrial zone of nearly 4 million people • Metrolina or Spersopolis
Coastal Plains • Swamps, marshes, flatwoods, wetlands • Formed during Cretaceous times when land surface was submerged under shallow ocean waters • Deep Chesapeake Bay, Outer Banks barrier islands
Topography • Carolina bays are elliptical depressions often underlain by peat, covered with decomposing vegetation and shrubs • Comprised of wetlands and shallow stream valleys, cropland , commercial woodland • Best agricultural land is known as the Inner Coastal Plain • 600 mile
Freshwater • Northern and Southern limits of Inner Coastal Plain are two of largest freshwater swamps • Great Dismal Swamp • Okefenokee
Agriculture • Farmers began growing corn and soybean • Livestock feed • Broiler Industry, 1960’s
Economy/Crops • Rice and Cotton prominent crops • Port of Hampton Roads, VA • Busiest port in the South Atlantic coastline Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and other cities makeup the largest naval installation in the United States.