Alabama Landscapes
Highland Rim
Highland Rim Section
Introduction
The Highland Rim section of the Interior Low Plateaus Province is the smallest physiographic section in Alabama, occupying about 7% of the state. It occurs as a roughly rectangular-shaped area of northern Alabama bounded by Huntsville (Madison County), Russellville (Franklin County), and the northern Alabama/Mississippi and Alabama/Tennessee borders. It continues northward into central Tennessee and Kentucky. The Highland Rim is bordered by the Cumberland Plateau to the south and east (Figure HR1).
Figure HR1. Location Map of The Highland Rim. Note: small outliers of East Gulf Coast Plain in the Lauderdale and Colbert Counties not shown. (Base maps from Cartographic Research Lab, Dept. of Geography, University of Alabama)
Average annual rainfall ranges from 58 inches in Athens (Limestone County) to 54 inches in Muscle Shoals (Colbert County) and average annual temperature from 59 to 60oF.
In 2000, The Highland Rim contained about 607,000 people, 216,000 of whom lived in Huntsville and Dothan. Population density was second only to the Valley and Ridge (~154 persons/square mile) The percentage of whites in the population was higher than the state average (79% white, 16% black or African American).
I-65 passes through the section connecting Birmingham to Nashville. Highway 72 runs parallel to the Tennessee River, connecting Dothan to the Shoals area.
An abbreviated version of this article occurs in the Encyclopedia of Alabama (http://eoa.auburn.edu/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1311)
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