"Chattahoochee" is a Creek Indian word which means "river of painted rocks".

The Chattahoochee River begins in the north Georgia mountains at a spring on Coon Den Ridge in southeastern Union County.

The headwaters of the Chattahoochee River above Atlanta comprise the smallest watershed, or drainage area, which provides a major portion of water supply for any metropolitan area in the country.

The Chattahoochee River Basin supplies 70% of metro Atlanta's drinking water, which is more than 450 million gallons per day. It is also used for industrial supply, irrigation, power generation, navigation and recreation and is considered to be the most heavily-used water resource in Georgia.

Metro Atlanta's sewage treatment plants release approximately 250 million gallons of treated wastewater each day into the Chattahoochee River.

In the upper Chattahoochee River Basin (Helen to West Point Dam), several hundred municipalities and industries are permitted to discharge specific levels of pollutants into the River.

Basin hydrology and water quality are influenced by 14 mainstem reservoirs.

In 1957, the Corps of Engineers completed Buford Dam, 50 miles above Atlanta, and created Lake Lanier, the most visited federal lake in the United States. Lake Lanier contains 38,000 acres and 700 miles of shoreline.

In the mid-1970's, the Corps of Engineers built West Point Lake, which is 85 miles south of Atlanta and has 25,900 acres and 525 miles of shoreline.

In 1978, Congress created the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area consisting of 48 miles of the River (Buford Dam to Peachtree Creek) and authorized the National Park Service to purchase land in units along the River. To date, about 5,000 acres have been purchased.

The Chattahoochee River is the second southernmost trout habitat in the United States (other: Guadalupe River, Texas) and is also one of only two trout streams in North America that flow through a major urban area (other: Bow River, Canada). The state of Georgia stocks rainbow, brook, and brown trout in the River and reproducing brown and rainbow trout have been documented in recent years.

The Chattahoochee River flows southwesterly 436 miles to the Florida border, defining the boundary between Georgia and Alabama near West Point Lake. At Lake Seminole on the Florida border, the Chattahoochee River is joined by the Flint River and becomes the Apalachicola River in Florida, flowing 106 miles to Apalachicola Bay where it empties 16 billion gallons of fresh water per day.

Apalachicola Bay produces 90 percent of Florida's and 13 percent of the Nation's oyster harvest, and functions as a nursery for shrimp, blue crabs and a variety of fin fish.

The Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) River Basin drains approximately 19,800 square miles in the Blue Ridge, Piedmont and Coastal Plain Provinces. The Chattahoochee River alone drains 8,770 square miles.