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Article: Piedmont Region
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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PIEDMONT REGION
PIEDMONT REGION.
A "foothill" region, 500 to 1500 feet in elevation, that extends from New Jersey to Alabama. It is composed of deeply weathered, mostly metamorphic rocks, the soils are acidic, and the original forest was deciduous hardwoods. The contact with the Coastal Plain on the eastern side is marked by a fall zone with navigable streams to the coast and entrep
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t cities, such as Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Richmond, Virginia, Columbia, South Carolina, and Columbus, Georgia. The northern portion was marked by diversified agriculture and manufacturing. From Virginia south, the area nearest the fall zone, the lower Piedmont, was a slave plantation economy ...