Where Does Appalachia Lie Geographically?

 I have thought from time to time that I should add blog posts to this blog about as many of the counties in Appalachia as I can reasonably write in the limited time I have.  Whenever I think about Appalachia, I always think in terms of the area of Central and Southern Appalachia or, as I prefer to describe it, the portion of the area which is variously called Appalachia which can be clearly identified as being a repository of the Appalachian Culture, or what is commonly called Central and Southern Appalachia, and never do I think of the greater geographic area which includes all of the Appalachian Mountains.  I also never think of Appalachia in the geographic terms which the Appalachian Regional Commission uses to designate as Appalachia.  That last area, as arbitrarily designated by the Appalachian Regional Commission, is an artificially created political designation and many counties are included in it which are not remotely Appalachian in their dominant, and sometimes even in their minority cultures.  Often those counties have been designated by the Appalachian Regional Commission and members of congress purely to enable those people to pull together enough votes in congress to pass funding bills.  Congress members love nothing better than to find ways to gain blocks of federal money for the areas which they theoretically represent.  

In Kentucky where I was raised and have lived most of my life, there is a governmentally created and funded designation, with primary objectives which are economic, called Appalachia Proud.  This name allows designated farmers, crafters, and other local producers to sell their products with the label Appalachia Proud attached to them.  In September 2019, 17 counties were added to the Appalachia Proud region in Kentucky.  Those newly designated Appalachia Proud counties range from Fleming, Robertson, and Nicholas counties in Northeastern Kentucky to Edmonson County in Western Kentucky in an area which is really much more a portion of the Midwestern United States.  I admit that I have never done any in depth cultural analysis of Edmonson County but I have ridden a horse across the county in the time when I worked for the Vision Quest Wagon Trains as the Advance Scout for the program.  In that capacity, I dealt with local landowners, public officials, and business owners on a daily basis wherever the Wagon Trains traveled and I can assure you I never saw any evidence of Appalachian Culture in Edmonson County.  I generally say that, in my professional opinion as an Appalachian scholar and writer, that the area of Central and Southern Appalachia ends in its western boundary along a line roughly equivalent to the line of Interstate 65.  If I am asked to say which county I believe is the westernmost in Central and Southern Appalachia, I generally say that I believe it is Adair County, the county seat of which is Columbia, Kentucky, the home of my alma mater Lindsey Wilson College.  

I also generally dispute the frequently expressed idea that 32 counties in Southern Ohio are in Appalachia.  I cannot think of a more convincing geographic and cultural boundary than the Ohio River.  I sometimes tell proponents of the concept of Appalachian Ohio that they should go stand in the middle of the Ohio River and convince that little puddle that it is not a cultural and geographic boundary.  I freely admit that this response generally does not please those people.  But I also freely and wholeheartedly accept the notion that Cincinnati, Ohio, doe have a sizeable population of Appalachian people living there.  But they are all migrants from Central and Southern Appalachia.  I also believe wholeheartedly that the cultural area of Appalachia does not extend farther north and east than the general area of Western Maryland.  

Yes, I know some of my readers will not like what I have said here.  That's fine with me and it's not my problem.