Completed
in 1987, the Blue Ridge Parkway motor road extends 470.02 miles
from Rockfish Gap at the southern end of Shenandoah National
Park in Virginia to the Oconaluftee area of the Great Smoky
Mountains National Park in North Carolina. It includes 216.95
miles in Virginia and 253.07 in North Carolina. 
Alleghany County, NC. It
opened to traffic in April 1939. The final section was completed
in 1987 – 7.5 miles around Grandfather Mountain which included
the Linn Cove Viaduct.The Blue Ridge Parkway is the most visited unit of the 391 units of the National Park Service with over 19,000,000 visitors – excluding commuter traffic – each year. That’s more visitors than Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone national parks combined.
The Parkway passes through two states, 29 counties, six Congressional districts, four National Forests (George Washington, Jefferson, Pisgah, and Nantahala), and the Qualla Boundary Cherokee Indian Reservation.
The Parkway has nine campgrounds with a total of 721 tent sites and 351 RV sites. There are 15 developed picnic areas and approximately 275 parking overlooks.
The motor road crosses 151 bridges and goes through 26 tunnels, 25 of which are in North Carolina. The longest, Pine Mountain Tunnel at milepost 399, is 1,320 feet long.
Concessioners provide visitor services at 11 locations on the Parkway. Overnight lodging can be found at four of these locations and food service at six.
Designated
as an All-American Road, the
Blue Ridge Parkway’s natural
features include spectacular
mountain and valley vistas,
quiet pastoral scenes, sparkling
waterfalls, colorful flowers,
and foliage displays.
Designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Parkway is recognized throughout the world as an international example of landscape and engineering design achievements.
(Photos and content provided by: http://www.blueridgeparkway75.org)
