Brasstown Bald

Brasstown Bald is the highest point in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is located in the northeastern part of the state in the Blue Ridge Mountains on the border between Towns and Union counties south of the city of Hiawassee. The mountain is known to the native Cherokee people as Enotah.

The name in English is derived from a mistaken translation of the term for the nearby Cherokee village of Brasstown, located along the upper Brasstown Creek (named in English from the same error) feeding the Hiawassee River.

Immediately north of the mountain and across the state line with North Carolina are other places named by English settlers: Brasstown, a community in the Brasstown township of Clay County, North Carolina.

Brasstown Bald encompasses Towns and Union counties with the county line intersecting the peak. The mountain is part of the Blue Ridge Mountains (part of the Appalachian Mountains) and within the borders of the Blue Ridge Ranger District of the Chattahoochee National Forest. The mountain consists mostly of soapstone and dunite.

On a clear day it is possible to see the tallest buildings of Atlanta, some 85 miles away from the summit. The U.S. Forest Service has webcams atop the observation tower and a RAWS weather station further down the mountain. The public can drive to a parking lot 0.5 miles (0.8 km) from the top via Georgia State Route 180 Spur and then continue to the summit via a shuttle bus or a short hike on a paved trail.

According to the two Georgia historical markers, the area surrounding Brasstown Bald was settled by the Cherokee people. English-speaking settlers derived the word "Brasstown" from a translation error of the Cherokee word for its village place. Settlers confused the word Itse'yĭ (meaning "New Green Place" or "Place of Fresh Green"), which the Cherokee used for their village, with Ûňtsaiyĭ ("brass"), and referred to the settlement as Brasstown. The Cherokee gave the locative name, Itse'yĭ, to several distinct areas in their territory, including an area nearby in what is considered present-day North Carolina.

According to Cherokee legend about Itse'yĭ, a great flood swept over the land. All the people died except a few Cherokee families who sought refuge in a giant canoe. The canoe ran aground at the summit of a forested mountain (now known as Enotah). As there was no wild game for the people to hunt and no place for them to plant crops, the Great Spirit killed all the trees on the top of the mountain so that the surviving people could plant crops. They continued planting and lived from their crops until the water subsided.^{[citation needed]}

Other transliterated spellings of the Cherokee name for the mountain include Echia, Echoee, Etchowee, and Enotah.^{[citation needed]}