Piedmont is the plateau region of the eastern
United States which lies between the
Atlantic Coastal Plain, from which it's divided by the
fall line, and the eastern mountain ranges, the
Appalachian Mountains. The width of the Piedmont varies, being quite narrow above the
Delaware River (and non-existent above the
Hudson River), but nearly 300 miles (475 km) wide in the
state of
North Carolina. The Piedmont region of North Carolina consists of three major metropolitan areas: the
Piedmont Triad,
Metrolina, and the
Research Triangle, all of which contribute to a geographical phoenomenon known as the
Piedmont Crescent.
The surface relief of the Piedmont is characterized by relatively low, rolling hills with heights above
sea level between 200 feet (50 m) and 800 feet to 1000 feet (250 m to 300 m). Its
geology is complex, with numerous rock formations of different materials and ages intermingled with one another. Essentially, the Piedmont is the remnant of several ancient
mountain chains that have since been eroded away. Geologists have identified at least five separate events which have led to
sediment deposition, including the
Grenville orogeny (the collision of continents when the
supercontinent Rodinia was formed) and the
Appalachian orogeny during the formation of
Pangaea. The last major event in the history of the Piedmont was the break-up of Pangaea, when
North America and
Africa began to separate. Large
basins formed from the
rifting and were subsequently filled by the sediments shed from the surrounding higher ground. The series of
mesozoic basins is almost entirely located within the Piedmont region.
In the Southeast, the Piedmont is marked by red, iron-stained clay--weathered from the granitic bedrock beneath and uncovered by generations of poor farming practices. The
Cecil soil series is representative.
The name "Piedmont" derives from the
Italian region of
Piedmont (in
Italian:
Piemonte), whose meaning is
to the feet of the mountains because of its characteristic geographical position, a plain surrounded by the
Alps.
Music
The Piedmont region is closely associated with the
blues style that originated there in the late 19th century. Most Piedmont blues musicians came from Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia. During the
Great Migration, Black Americans migrated to the Piedmont. With the Appalachian Mountains to the west, those who may otherwise have spread into rural areas instead stayed in cities and were thus exposed to a broader mixture of music than those in, for example, the rural Mississippi delta. Thus,
Piedmont blues was influenced by white forms such as ragtime, country, and popular songs, forms that had comparatively less bearing on blues in other regions.
Piedmont is also characteristic of a style of dance known as the
cakewalk or the Slow Drag, which originated based on the local culture and community.
External results
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