Mapping Appalachia has three components
- This website
- A companion article, published in the Journal of Appalachian Studies
- An interactive map created in ArcGIS
This website houses descriptions of and scanned original versions of historical maps as well as links to the article and the ArcGIS map.
Our goal is not to enforce any particular definition of Appalachia but to illustrate the arbitrary and selective nature of definitions over time.
For maps made by students of their home communities, see Berea College’s Mappalachia project.
“Mapping Appalachia” is named after Eugene McCann’s article about the ways in which maps usually function as tools of power but can fuel egalitarian political projects
(Journal of Appalachian Studies 1998).
Collaborative project by:
Stewart Scales, instructor in the Department of Geography at Virginia Tech, where he teaches Cartography and the Geography of Appalachia.
Emily Satterwhite, professor of Appalachian Studies at Virginia Tech.
Abby August, a 2018 graduate of Virginia Tech with a B.A. in geography