Linville Gorge Wilderness is a protected wilderness in western North Carolina within Pisgah National Forest, centered on the Linville River. Known as the Grand Canyon of North Carolina, it spans 11,786 acres, ranks as the state’s third largest wilderness area, and is one of only two wilderness gorges in the southern United States. Its steep, difficult terrain helped keep it largely unsettled and spared it from industrial clearcutting, preserving about 10,000 acres of virgin forest in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Long part of Cherokee homelands, the gorge later took the Linville name after explorers killed there in 1766. Protected since 1952 and federally designated in 1964, it remains notably undeveloped and closely managed to stay wild.