Meandering for more than 350 river miles, the Flint River is fed by a basin comprised of 8,460 square miles of Georgia's Piedmont and Coastal Plain region. Known for its incredible scenery, the Flint serves as host to a richly diverse ecological community, a heritage that has survived the surge of development surrounding the river. Millions have enjoyed the beauty and abundance of the Flint River through the centuries, from the early Indian inhabitants to the cotton farmers of the turn of the century to the citizens of today who rely on its waters to fuel homes and industry as well as farms and recreation.
The Flint has carried many names but all have referred to the quartz-based rock found along its banks, used for thousands of years by native cultures to fashion arrowheads and tools. The ancient Eastern Woodland tribes that settled near today's city of Albany called the river and village Thronateeska, or Thlonotiaske, meaning "flint picking-up place."