Shenandoah River

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Shenandoah River Watershed

Canoeing on the Shenandoah River in Clarke County, Virginia.

This article is about the river in Virginia in the United States. For other uses, see Shenandoah (disambiguation)

The Shenandoah River is a tributary of the Potomac River, approximately 150 mi (241 km) long, in the U.S. states of Virginia and West Virginia. The principal tributary of the Potomac, the river and its tributaries drain several lateral valleys in the Appalachians on the west side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, mostly in northwestern Virginia.

The Shenandoah is one of the rare North American rivers that flows to the north.

It is formed north of Front Royal at Riverton, Virginia, by the confluence of the South Fork (the longer branch) and the North Fork. It flows northeast across Warren and Clarke counties, then into West Virginia, crossing the extreme eastern tip of the state. It joins the Potomac from the south near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

The Shenandoah valley is underlain by limestone. The fertile soil made it a favored place for early settlement and it continues to be a major agricultural area of Virginia and West Virginia. Some karst topography is evident and Luray Caverns in Luray, Virginia is a popular tourist attraction.

The Shenandoah River is mentioned in John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads," which associates the river with the state of West Virginia. In fact, both the Shenandoah and the also mentioned Blue Ridge Mountains are, with the exception of the tiny geological fingertip near Harper's Ferry, entirely within the state of Virginia.