What is the highest point in the Appalachian Mountains?

Mount Mitchell is the highest point in the Appalachian Mountains. Its summit stands 2,037 meters (6,684 feet) above sea level in North Carolina’s Black Mountains.

Located about 19 miles northeast of Asheville, Mount Mitchell is protected within Mount Mitchell State Park and the Pisgah National Forest. It is also the highest mountain in the United States east of the Mississippi River. The summit’s elevation gives it a cool, wet climate and a spruce-fir forest more commonly associated with much farther north.

The mountain was named for Elisha Mitchell, a University of North Carolina professor who measured the Black Mountains in the 1830s. His work challenged the widespread belief that New Hampshire’s Mount Washington was the highest eastern peak. Mitchell later died near the mountain while returning to verify his measurements, and he was buried at the summit.

Clingmans Dome is the highest point of the Great Smoky Mountains, but not of the entire Appalachians. Mount Washington and Mount Marcy are also prominent northeastern peaks, yet both are lower than Mount Mitchell.