A major waterway of the Southeastern United States, the Tennessee River is also a central part of one of the largest irrigation and hydroelectric power systems in the world. It is the fifth-largest river system.  The river begins with the joining of the Holston and French Broad Rivers east of Knoxville. From there it follows a U-shaped course of 652 miles (1,049 kilometers) until it enters the Ohio River at Paducah, Ky.

From its beginning, the Tennessee flows in a southwesterly direction to Chattanooga, TN before turning westward through the Cumberland Plateau into northern Alabama. It continues across Alabama before turning northward at the Mississippi-Alabama border to flow through Tennessee and Kentucky to Paducah. The river's drainage basin is about 41,000 square miles (106,000 square kilometers).

The chief tributaries of the Tennessee are the Little Tennessee, Hiawassee, Paint Rock, Duck, and Ocoee rivers from a southerly direction; and the Clinch, Flint, Sequatchie, and Elk rivers from the north. The river's chief urban centers are Knoxville and Chattanooga in Tennessee and Florence and Decatur in Alabama.

The name of the river may have come from a small Cherokee Indian village located on the Little Tennessee River. The Tennessee River was explored during colonial times--in the period of rivalry between the French and the English for control of territory west of the Appalachian Mountains. Some small forts and trading posts were established on its banks. It served as a route for settlers moving westward, but its role was negligible compared to that of the larger and much more navigable Ohio River. The reason was the river's shallowness; it could only be navigated by flatboats. The coming of the railroads also kept it from becoming a major transportation artery. During the Civil War the northern section of the river was used as an invasion route into the South. The modern development of the river began in 1933 with the Tennessee Valley Authority.

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