VIRGINIA FOREST RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES 
The State: Its Environment and Resources. 
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TRETCHING westward 432 miles from the 
Atlantic Ocean to the famous Cumberland Gap 
on the Kentucky State line, the southern bound- 
ary of Virginia separates the Old Dominion from 
North Carolina and Tennessee. From that boundary 
the State extends a maximum of 200 miles northward 
to Maryland. The total area of Virginia is 40, 815 
square miles, of which 916 square miles is water. 
The land area is 25,535,360 acres. 
Phystographic Provinces 
Three major physiographic provinces characterize 
the State (fig. 2). The Coastal province, one-fourth 
of the land area of the State, contains 6,362,900 acres. 
It extends inland approximately 125 miles from the 
coast and about the same distance from the Potomac 
to the southern boundary. Elevations range from 
sea level up to 300 feet on the western boundary. The 
area lying between the coast line and the range of high 
tide in the major watercourses is known as the Tide- 
water, where elevations seldom exceed 50 feet. Four 
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== BOUNDARY OF PHYSIOGRAPHIC PROVINCE 
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Ficure 2.—Physiographic provinces, counties, principal rivers, and national forests and parks in Virginia. 
Miscellaneous Publication 681, U. S. Department of Agriculture | 
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major rivers break the northern and central part of 
the region into three long peninsulas, and a fourth 
peninsula, the Eastern Shore, is separated from the | 
rest by the broad waters of Chesapeake Bay. This 
combination of tidal rivers and the Bay has provided | 
excellent harbors which contribute to the prosperity | 
of the region. While most of this area has been farmed } 
pancy, cultivated fields are now generally restricted to 
the more productive sandy loam and light sandy soils } 
which can be farmed indefinitely with proper fer- | ' 
tilizing and soil-conserving measures (fig. 3). In 1940 | 
only 29 percent of the area was in use for crops and | 
improved pasture, 62 percent was forested, and the §;, 
rest was in towns and other miscellaneous uses. 
West of the Coastal Plain lies the Piedmont pro- | 
vince, containing about two-fifths of Virginia’s land, 
or a little more than 10 million acres. It extends 250 §,, 
miles from northeast to southwest across the State and J, 
varies in width from 50 miles on the Maryland line to 
about 150 miles at the North Carolina border. The 
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