Talk:Appalachia

Appalachia

Swept in from the pub:

Since I live in Ohio, on the fringe of Appalachia, and have been considering starting a page on Appalachia as a region. I thought it best to bring it up here rather than face a VFD for redundancy. Appalachia is a unique region of the United States and offers a lot to a prospective visitor. I have traveled through Appalachia more time that I can count, but really know very little of it, but would be willing to research it and contribute to it. It is my hope that others will help fill in the blanks and provide a map.. Places like Asheville offer much to a visitor, included could be things unique to the area like the handling of poisionous snakes at religious services being legal in West Virginia, moonshine, Blue Ridge Mountains, Appalachian Hiking Trail and so on.. We could even include the sound track for Dueling Banjo's. (just kidding). Your comments will be appreciated. (WT-en) 2old 12:15, 17 October 2007 (EDT)

I don't know the area, so I can't say whether it makes sense as a region or not... is it really big? does it cross multiple states? Are the areas that it encompasses already covered pretty well by smaller regions? Another idea, if it doesn't make the best sense as a region, would be to create an itinerary of it instead – (WT-en) cacahuate ^talk 13:31, 17 October 2007 (EDT)

I appreciate your response. From Wikipedia Appalachia is a term used to describe a region in the eastern United States that stretches from southern New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. Although parts of the Appalachian Mountains extend through Maine into Canada, New England is usually excluded from the definition of Appalachia. Yep, kinda big area. It is pretty much the length and width of the Appalachian Mountains. Due to the terrain, it is an area that was difficult to traverse in early history and is not all that much better now. I have wandered deep into a lot of areas, (think-mountains,trees, mountains, trees). It is really different from the rest on the US in many ways once you get into the interior. My last trip was with a buddy to pick up a bag of poisionus snakes (no kidding). I think it is way to big for an itinerary. (WT-en) 2old 14:08, 17 October 2007 (EDT)

Yeah, sounds way too big for a region too  :( – (WT-en) cacahuate ^talk 14:16, 17 October 2007 (EDT)

See map. Image:Appalachia.png (WT-en) 2old 14:29, 17 October 2007 (EDT)

That looks really very big. You seem to want to create a mountain range article and having seen how quickly that can become a bad thing, I would certainly advice against it. See the comments above at Mountain ranges guidelines --(WT-en) NJR_ZA 14:50, 17 October 2007 (EDT)

Interesting idea, Mike. I agree that the area is too big and I think that may lead to generalities or spotty coverage. I would like to see the idea filter in somewhere though. Maybe as a part of South (United States of America) or W. Virginia or whatever state(s) best represents it--or even in county or other sub-regions. The name evokes an image of "poor isolated mountain areas", rather than (more deservedly) a culture. -- (WT-en) OldPine 15:24, 17 October 2007 (EDT)

I had not thought of it as a mountain range article, but that is a good point. Due to the unique location of this area and the absolute cultural differences in this area compared to the rest of the country, I felt an article would be in order. It really is not about the area as much as the different cultures in this area. But, I will put it on hold until it is clear that an article is appropriate. Thank you for your direction. (WT-en) 2old 15:28, 17 October 2007 (EDT)

Also being from Ohio, I'm kind of interested in the idea. Although, I have to say I'm actually more interested in an itinerary, something like - Touring Appalachia. Think you could develop something like that? -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 16:15, 17 October 2007 (EDT)

I'd say it makes sense to have an article on this. Not sure how to classify it,though. It may not fit our definition of "region" — in particular the hierarchicality thereof — but is in fact fairly obviously a region, so I'd say make it a region article within the USA. If that breaks the hierarchy, OK. There are lots of other cases where the a straightforward hierarchical model does not fit the real world. Mediterranean Europe not including France leaps to mind, or the debate over whether Turkey belongs in Middle East as well as Europe.

An itinerary could also work, in addition to or perhaps instead of a region article, and it might even be shoehorned into a travel topic, Appalachian culture or some such, but I'd prefer a region. (WT-en) Pashley 08:08, 18 October 2007 (EDT)

Based on the comments, there seems to be some interest in an article of some sort on this, and I appreciate all of your comments. There are other areas that face simlar ethnic and cultural differences. Examples may be Louisiana and Quebec to name a few. In the case of Quebec, which is my least favorite Wikivoyage article, it is biased towards the Francophone culture. It may be appropriate to have two articles 1. Quebec/Francophone 2.Quebec/English (English as Amish refer to non-Amish - Example Only). In that case, as in States within the Appalchian Region, the articles would have substantial differences, even though they are geographically the same. In the late 1800's and early 1900's Appalachia was a rugged, rural place. Today, if someone from outside of the country asked me to suggest three places in the USA to visit Appalchia would be on the list. While there are still rugged, remote areas, the people have adapted in various ways that include artist colonies and numerous cottage industries that could only be found outside of the cities covered in the Wikivoyage articles. It would also be interesting to visit some of these areas with you linguists and see what your evalution of people who speak in tounges is. But this is getting long and I am sure you have the idea. I thought this info may be important to the discussion. Thanks again. (WT-en) 2old 11:40, 18 October 2007 (EDT)

Since Appalachian Trail is an existing itinerary, I think I will try to improve on it a little and develope more resources for the area there. Then if we decide a regional article is appropriate we can go from there. (WT-en) 2old 12:08, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

Appalachia

Appalachia, the Appalachian Region, and the Appalachian Mountains all designate different areas of the United States and Canada, should these be merged or kept separate? Nicole Sharp (talk) 09:12, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

That's a good question, Nicole. It's certainly true that the Appalachian Mountains include regions that are not normally considered part of Appalachia, but I wasn't aware that there was a geographical difference between Appalachia and the Appalachian Region. My feeling is, go ahead with this article, and once we have the content, it could always be merged with Appalachian Mountains, if that decision is made, but either way, it's good to have the content up.

However, there are some questions of format in this article so far. On Wikivoyage, we generally don't like numbered lists, and the standard format of city lists in regional articles is to link, with short descriptions, the 9 most important cities under "Cities," and then list up to 9 other cities/other attractions of sufficient importance to have their own article (e.g., large national or state parks, mountain ranges) under "Other destinations." A list of the top 23 Appalachian cities might or might not be good on Wikipedia, but it's not the way we do things here. Please have a look at Wikivoyage:Region article template and Wikivoyage talk:Region article template#How many is nine. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:24, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Chopping it down to nine is no problem. Btw for regions, I do not know how to import images, but there is one at http://www.arc.gov/research/MapsofAppalachia.asp?MAP_ID=31 the ARC is a US federal agency so all information on their website is public domain. However, the ARC subregions are mostly economic regions and do not correspond to cultural regions that a traveler would experience. "Appalachia" is a catch-all term, but for most contexts refers to the cultural as opposed to the geophysical definition. The mountains do create cultural differences from the lowlands regardless of where there are (e.g. Quebec or Massachusetts) but Appalachian culture is most strongly associated with Southern Appalachia (Georgia to West Virginia). Large parts of Virginia are extremely rugged and mountainous and within the Appalachian cultural region but excluded from the Appalachian Region for political reasons (many Virginians do not want to be labeled as "Appalachian"). Similarly, Memphis, TN and northern Mississippi are in the Appalachian Region for economic development but are outside the mountains. I would suggest keeping Appalachia and Appalachian Mountains separate to exclude Canada and New England from the more common (though less literal) definition of Appalachia and approximate the Wikivoyage Appalachian region on that set by the ARC (by merging Appalachia with Appalachian Region). Nicole Sharp (talk) 09:37, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I moved the contents of Appalachian Region to the page for Appalachia. Nicole Sharp (talk) 09:43, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. I think that travelers would be more interested in the cultural and physical aspects of the region, and less interested in purely political/bureaucratic aspects, but economic regions could be relevant to travelers' experiences, too. I couldn't tell you how to transfer a map file. Perhaps someone else will chime in. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:50, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Numbered list of cities

Please make that conform to "9 most important" structure I mention above; otherwise, someone else will have to edit it. We don't like numbered lists - especially long ones - on Wikivoyage. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:20, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Dialect

The Legendary Language of the Appalachian “Holler” Pashley (talk) 03:18, 24 November 2021 (UTC)