Nantahala National Forest, the largest of North Carolina’s four national forests, spans the mountains and valleys of the state’s west across 531,270 acres of the Appalachian temperate rainforest. Named from a Cherokee word meaning “Land of the Noonday Sun,” it lies within a landscape that was home to the Cherokee and their ancestors for thousands of years. Established in 1920 during rising conservation efforts after heavy logging, it was later reorganized to follow the state line. Its deep gorges, waterfalls, old-growth woodland, and prominent trails make it both an important protected remnant of the southern Appalachians and a major recreation area.