The Forests of Southern Appalachia

In The Great Smoky Mountains National Park

A Naturalist’s Guide to Understanding and Identifying Southern Appalachian Forest Types.

Maps

Maps featured in the book “The Forests of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park” are black and white in the book. This website offers the same maps in full color version.

Download Maps (PDF)

GSMNP Official Map

Base Map
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park official map is used as the base map for the two overlay maps in this book with permission from the Great Smoky Mountains Foundation.

GSMNP Base Map

Chapter 1.

Elevation
Most of the land in GSMNP and the rest of the southern Appalachians ranges between about 1500 feet and 6500 feet. Ecologists divide this range into the following three mountain
elevation zones.

• Low elevation zone (1500 feet to 2500 feet)
• Middle elevation zone (2500 feet to 4500 feet)
• High elevation zone (4500 feet to 6500 + feet)

This map shows the three elevation zones in the Park.

The elevation zone boundaries do not mark abrupt climate changes, but rather transition areas where progressively cooler and moister conditions eventually bring about significant changes in forest makeup.

GSMNP Elevation Zones

Chapter 2

Landform

Landforms

Chapter 3

Topographic Maps

Smokemont Topo

Chapter 4.

The Forest Finder

FF4-27-10

Road Prong Trail Topo

Chapter 6.

Disturbance Based Forest Groups

Disturbance-Based Forest Groups