Cumberland Plateau

The Cumberland Plateau is the southern Appalachian or Cumberland Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. 

The Plateau includes parts of Kentucky and Tennessee, northern Alabama and northwest Georgia.Appalachian Plateau Geologic Province, New Georgia Encyclopedia, The University of Georgia Press  

The terms "Allegheny Plateau" and the "Cumberland Plateau" refer to the heavily-ridged plateau lands west of the main Appalachian Mountains. The terms come from historical usage. Two major rivers share the names of the plateaus, with the Allegheny River rising in the Allegheny Plateau and the Cumberland River rising in the Cumberland Plateau in Harlan County, Kentucky.

This was early coal-mining territory, and the area had some famous and tragic coal mining accidents.

As mentioned in the article on the Allegheny Mountains, the mountains are the low ground-down rock of a once huge mountain chain. The land ridges are difficult to cross from the southeast to northwest (or vice versa), which has led to mountain folk being semi-isolated from the lower areas to either side of the mountains.

 References 

Category:Landforms of the United States
Category:Appalachian Mountains