Shenandoah

River in Virginia, formed at Fort Royal by the junction of the South Fork and North Fork rivers, and flowing 89 km/55 mi to join the Potomac at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, as it passes through the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The North Fork Shenandoah starts in New Market, Virginia; the South Fork Shenandoah at Port Republic, Virginia. Near the junction at Fort Royal is one of the earliest settlement sites in North America, a Paleo-Indian site dated to c. 9,300 BC.

The river is not navigable, but has several hydroelectric facilities. The fertile Shenandoah Valley is one of the nation's main apple-growing and dairy-farming regions. It is overlooked to the southwest by the Shenandoah National Park. During the Civil War, the Union general Philip Sheridan laid the valley to waste 1864–65.