page_title: Tanasi
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Tanasi / Geography
caption_attribution_description: The now-submerged site of Tanasi along the Little Tennessee River. Tanasi, the capital of the Cherokee in the early 1700s, was the namesake for the state of Tennessee. Bacon's Bend is on the opposite shore. This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 73001813
context_page_description: Tanasi was a historic Overhill Cherokee village site in present-day Monroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The village was the namesake for the state of Tennessee. Abandoned by the Cherokee in the 19th century, since 1979 the town site has been submerged by the Tellico Lake impoundment of the Little Tennessee River. Tanasi served as the de facto capital of the Cherokee from as early as 1721 until 1730, when the capital shifted to Great Tellico.
  The Cherokee town of Chota developed immediately north of and later than Tanasi; by the Chota 1740s had become the more prominent of the two towns, holding the townhouse where chiefs would meet with colonial emissaries. Although Chota and Tanasi had distinct political, social, and demographic traits, excavators in the late 1960s determined that the two towns are archaeologically indistinguishable. They were among what were called the Overhill Towns by English colonists, who traveled over the Appalachian Mountains from the east to reach them. The two towns are grouped as a single listing on the National Register of Historic Places, although Tanasi was given its own site designation in 1972.
context_section_description: The Little Tennessee River flows northwestward from its source in the Appalachian Mountains and traverses a 40-mile (64 km) stretch of northern Monroe County before emptying into the Tennessee River near Lenoir City. In 1979, the construction of Tellico Dam at the mouth of the river created a reservoir that spans the lower 33 miles (53 km) of the Little Tennessee and the lower 22 miles (35 km) of its tributary, the Tellico River, flooding the former town sites.  Tanasi was located along the west bank of the Little Tennessee 27 miles (43 km) upstream from the river's mouth.  The site was opposite a sharp bend in the river known as Bacon's Bend.
  Tanasi was situated on a relatively flat terrace flanked by the river on one side and a series of high, steep hills on the other.  These hills, noted on Timberlake's 1762 map, are part of the Appalachian Ridge-and-Valley Province, which spans much of the upper Tennessee Valley.  The Appalachian Range proper rises a few miles south of the Chota-Tanasi site.
caption: The Tanasi site, looking northwest from the Tanasi monument
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