Land

Three major regions comprise North Carolina’s topography. They are the Atlantic Coastal Plain, the Piedmont Plateau, and the Appalachian Mountains.

The Outer Banks, narrow islands of shifting sandbars, screen most of the coastal plain from the ocean. Navigation in this region is treacherous and difficult and therefore this region has earned the name of "Graveyard of the Atlantic" for the shoal waters off Cape Hatteras, which, like Cape Lookout and Cape Fear, juts out from the banks into the Atlantic. Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is the tallest in the US, rising 208 ft (63 m).

The coastal plain on the mainland extends westward for 100 to 140 mi (160–225 km) and upward from sea level to nearly 500 ft (150 m). The outer coastal plain is flat and often swampy. It contains all the natural lakes the largest being Lake Mattamuskeet (67 sq mi/174 sq km). The other lakes are Phelps and Waccamaw. Compared to the outer coastal plain the inner coastal plain is more elevated and better drained.

The Piedmont is a rolling plateau of red clay soil roughly 150 mi (240 km) wide, rising from 30 to 600 ft (90–180 m) in the east to 1,500 ft (460 m) in the west.

The Piedmont is divided from the westernmost region of North Carolina by the Blue Ridge, a steep escarpment containing the highest and most rugged portion of the Appalachian chain. The two major ranges are the Blue Ridge itself, which averages 3,000–4,000 ft high (900–1,200 m), and the Great Smoky Mountains, which have 43 peaks higher than 6,000 ft (1,800 m). Several smaller chains like the Black Mountains, contains Mt. Mitchell, at 6,684 ft (2,039 m) the tallest peak east of the Mississippi River intersect these two ranges.

No single river basin dominates North Carolina. The major rivers that flow to the Mississippi are the Hiwassee, Little Tennessee, French Broad, Watauga, and New Rivers. East of the Blue Ridge, the Chowan, Roanoke, Tar, Neuse, Cape Fear, Yadkin, and Catawba drain the piedmont and coastal plain. The largest artificial lakes are Lake Norman on the Catawba, Lake Gaston on the Roanoke, and High Rock Lake on the Yadkin.