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Field Guide · Entry № 240

Okefenokee Swamp

A wall of pond cypress draped in grey Spanish moss, threaded with rust-red seed strands, rises from black water strewn with lily pads, a green shrub glowing at left

Photograph: Fsendek1904 · CC BY-SA 4.0

On the Georgia–Florida line, in a shallow basin that was once a coastal lagoon, the Okefenokee has been laying down peat for six and a half thousand years. Its water is the colour of strong tea, stained by the plants decaying in it; cypress and tupelo stand in it, open wet prairies stretch between them, and in places the peat rises from the bottom as islands that shiver when you stamp. Its name is usually glossed as “land of the trembling earth”. A company dug a canal to drain it in the 1890s and failed; loggers took its old cypress; a titanium mine was planned at its edge as recently as 2025. In July 2026 it became Georgia’s first World Heritage site.

Where
South-east Georgia and north-east Florida
United States
Coordinates
30.74° N
82.24° W
Swamp
About 438,000 acres (177,000 ha)
peat up to 15 ft (4.6 m) thick
Protected
National wildlife refuge 1937
World Heritage, July 2026
Rivers
Source of the Suwannee
and the St. Marys
Getting there
By road to Folkston, Fargo
or Waycross, Georgia
Best visited
October to April
Advisory
United States
(no State Department level)
From Tally’s diary

The water lay dark as stewed tea and perfectly still, lily pads and white flowers on it and grey moss hanging off the cypresses like washing. Now and then a pair of eyes and a snout surfaced and watched us drift by. On a little island the guide stamped his boot, and the bushes a few yards off shivered. I kept extremely still after that.

The short answer

The Okefenokee Swamp is a shallow, peat-filled wetland of about 438,000 acres (177,000 ha) straddling the border of Georgia and Florida, and the largest blackwater swamp in North America, Wikipedia records. Most of it lies in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, about 402,000 acres, set up by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937 and run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from Folkston, Georgia; its interior is the Okefenokee Wilderness, designated in 1974. The Suwannee River rises in the heart of the swamp and carries at least nine-tenths of its water south-west to the Gulf of Mexico; the St. Marys drains its south-eastern corner to the Atlantic and marks part of the Georgia–Florida line. In July 2026 the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, meeting in Busan, South Korea, inscribed the refuge as Georgia’s first World Heritage site and the 27th in the United States.

Why it's worth knowing

A swamp made of peat. The Okefenokee formed over the past 6,500 years as peat built up in a shallow basin on an old Atlantic coastal terrace, the relic of an Ice Age estuary, behind a ridge of ancient dunes or barrier island, Trail Ridge, Wikipedia records. Peat lies up to 15 feet (4.6 m) thick, and in places it is so loose that stamping on it makes the trees and bushes around tremble. The water is stained the colour of tea by tannins from decaying plants. About 60,000 acres are open wet “prairies”, made when droughts let fire burn off the vegetation and the top of the peat; the swamp depends on a cycle of drought and fire every twenty to thirty years.

Trembling earth, or bubbling water. “Okefenokee” is usually translated “land of the trembling earth”, and the refuge’s own history repeats it. Wikipedia’s articles note that the name is attested in more than a dozen spellings and is more likely to come from the Hitchiti oki fanôːki, “bubbling water”.

Drained, logged, nearly mined. In 1891 the Suwannee Canal Company bought 238,120 acres of the swamp from the State of Georgia to drain it for rice, sugar cane and cotton; crews spent three years digging a canal 11.5 miles in before the scheme failed. The Hebard family of Philadelphia then logged its cypress, from 1909 to 1927, taking more than 431 million board feet, Wikipedia records. A DuPont titanium mine planned in the 1990s was abandoned in 2000 after protests. A second plan, by Twin Pines Minerals of Alabama, to mine titanium and zirconium about 2.9 miles from the refuge, drew more than 60,000 objections; it ended on 20 June 2025, when The Conservation Fund announced it had bought the company’s land, about 7,700 acres, with its mineral rights, for a reported $60 million (Wikipedia; Associated Press reports, as indexed).

The field notes

World Heritage, after forty years

The refuge was first identified as a possible World Heritage site in 1982; the National Park Service announced its nomination in September 2023, and the committee inscribed it in July 2026 under the natural criteria for ongoing ecological processes and biodiversity, Wikipedia records. Reports of the vote differ by two days: Georgia’s nonprofit newsroom The Current and the Southern Environmental Law Center dated it 25 July 2026, and other reports 27 July (as indexed). It was the first new natural World Heritage site in the United States in more than thirty years, those reports said, and the refuge stays owned and run by the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Alligators, frogs and pitcher plants

The refuge counts 621 plant species and 39 fish, 37 amphibian, 64 reptile, 234 bird and 50 mammal species, Wikipedia records. The swamp is known for its frogs and toads, used by scientists as indicators of environmental health, for its American alligators, for carnivorous plants including the hooded pitcher plant and a giant local variety of Sarracenia minor, and for the red-cockaded woodpecker, the wood stork, the indigo snake and the gopher tortoise among its threatened species. An alligator called “Okefenokee Joe”, the oldest known, died there in September 2021 at almost 80.

The Swampers

People lived in and around the swamp from at least 2500 BC; the Timucua-speaking Oconi lived on its edge in the Spanish colonial era, and the Seminoles were the last Native people to take refuge in it, until the Second Seminole War, Wikipedia records. Later settlers, the “Swampers”, mostly of English descent, kept old turns of phrase into the twentieth century. On Chesser Island, on the east side, W.T. Chesser’s family settled in the late nineteenth century; the last of them left in 1958, and their homestead still stands, reached by the refuge’s Swamp Island Drive.

A dark, tea-coloured channel runs past a bank of autumn-coloured shrubs and moss-covered stumps, bare snags and a pale sky in the distance

A tea-dark channel through the refuge in autumn colour, November 2016.

Photograph: Stephanie Harvey · Okefenokee Nov 2016 001 · CC BY 2.0

Deep-blue open water dotted with lily pads and grassy hummocks gives way to a wide green carpet of shrubs and sedges, a distant tree line on the horizon

Open water, lily pads and floating peat islands in one of the swamp's prairies.

Photograph: Ryan Hagerty, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service · Public domain (PD-USGov, US Fish and Wildlife Service) · cropped

A tall white egret with a yellow bill stalks through shallow, lily-pad-strewn water lit by low sun, a bare branch at upper right

A great egret wading among lily pads.

Photograph: Alecstatic · CC BY-SA 4.0

Tall moss-hung cypress trees with rust-orange autumn needles rise from dark, reflective water under a blue sky with thin cloud

Pond cypress in autumn colour, mirrored in the tea-dark water.

Photograph: Clinton Steeds · Taxodium ascendens in the Black Water, Okefenokee · CC BY 2.0

Tally’s list
  1. Launch at first light, hands and feet inside the boat.
  2. Let every alligator go first, and feed nothing at all.
  3. Stay on the marked water trails. The swamp closes over a wrong turn quickly.
  4. Walk the boardwalk out over the prairie at dusk and hear the frogs tune up.
  5. Bring a dry bag for your notebook. (I did not. Half the notebook is a smudge now, and the rest says alligator, twice.)
The Relic

The Suwannee Canal. A straight channel cut by hand into the east side of the swamp in the 1890s, when the Suwannee Canal Company, having bought much of the Okefenokee from the State of Georgia, set crews under Captain Henry Jackson to dig for three years to drain it for plantations. They got 11.5 miles in before the company failed, Wikipedia records. The swamp was not drained. The canal is still there, dark water between cypress and moss, and it is the way boats now go in from the refuge’s main entrance.

Tally, in the marginA ditch dug to empty the swamp, which the swamp quietly kept, and now uses to let visitors in. I paddled the whole length of it before I saw the joke, and by then I felt the swamp had won the argument and been very gracious about it.

Getting there

How to get there. By road; the swamp has three main entrances, each with an entrance fee, Wikipedia records. The East Entrance, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s main one at the Suwannee Canal Recreation Area, is 11 miles south-west of Folkston, Georgia, with the visitor centre, boat tours and rentals, the 9-mile Swamp Island Drive to the Chesser homestead, a boardwalk and an observation tower. The West Entrance is Stephen C. Foster State Park, 17 miles east of Fargo, Georgia; the North Entrance is Okefenokee Swamp Park, 8 miles south of Waycross. Jacksonville, Florida, has the nearest large airport, about an hour’s drive from Folkston [Est.].

When to go. October to April, the cooler half of the year; summers are hot and humid, and droughts bring wildfire risk (the Bugaboo Fire of 2007 burned more than 600,000 acres in the region). Fishing is open all year under Georgia’s rules.

What to arrange ahead. For a day, nothing beyond the entrance fee: guided boat tours and canoe, kayak and boat rentals run from the East and West entrances (the refuge’s brochures, as indexed). The refuge has 121 miles of water trails. Overnight paddling trips to the platforms in the interior need a permit booked in advance, and watercraft must stay on the marked trails (Fish and Wildlife Service brochures, as indexed).

Safety. The State Department’s travel advisories cover other countries, so none applies here; the hazards are the swamp’s own. Keep a safe distance from alligators and never feed them, stay in the boat and on the marked trails, carry water and protection from sun and insects, and check for fire closures in drought years.

Mark this place

North America →

Common questions

Where is the Okefenokee Swamp?

The Okefenokee Swamp straddles the border of south-east Georgia and north-east Florida in the United States. Its main entrance is 11 miles south-west of Folkston, Georgia, with other entrances near Fargo and Waycross, Georgia.

How big is the Okefenokee Swamp?

The Okefenokee Swamp covers about 438,000 acres (177,000 ha) on the Georgia-Florida line, about 402,000 acres of it within the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. Wikipedia calls it the largest blackwater swamp in North America.

What does Okefenokee mean?

Okefenokee is usually translated “land of the trembling earth”, after the swamp’s loose peat islands, which shake when stamped on. Wikipedia notes that the name more likely comes from the Hitchiti oki fanôːki, “bubbling water”, and that it is recorded in more than a dozen spellings.

When did the Okefenokee become a World Heritage site?

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee inscribed the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in July 2026, at its 47th session in Busan, South Korea, making it Georgia’s first World Heritage site and the 27th in the United States. Reports date the vote to 25 or 27 July 2026.

Was there a mine planned near the Okefenokee?

Yes. Twin Pines Minerals planned to mine titanium and zirconium about 2.9 miles from the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. The plan ended on 20 June 2025, when The Conservation Fund announced it had bought the company’s land near the swamp, with its mineral rights, for a reported $60 million.

Can you canoe in the Okefenokee Swamp?

Yes. The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge has 121 miles of water trails, with canoe, kayak and boat rentals and guided tours at its east and west entrances. Overnight paddling trips to interior camping platforms need an advance permit, and boats must stay on marked trails.

Are there alligators in the Okefenokee?

Yes. The Okefenokee Swamp on the Georgia-Florida line is known for its American alligators, among 64 reptile species recorded in the refuge. Visitors are told to keep their distance, stay in their boats and never feed them.

Why is the Okefenokee water dark?

The water of the Okefenokee Swamp is stained the colour of tea by tannins released from decaying plants, which is why it is called a blackwater swamp. The slow water drains mostly south-west by the Suwannee River to the Gulf of Mexico.

Notes on sources. The Okefenokee Swamp is in the United States, so no State Department advisory applies. Wikipedia’s articles on the Okefenokee Swamp and the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, read directly, and the references they cite, supplied the swamp’s size, position and type, the refuge’s area, founding in 1937 and wilderness of 1974, the rivers, the peat, its age and thickness, Trail Ridge, the tea-coloured water, the prairies and the fire cycle, the name’s usual gloss and the Hitchiti derivation, the Suwannee Canal Company’s purchase, canal and failure, Captain Henry Jackson, the Hebard logging and its volume, the DuPont and Twin Pines mining plans and the Conservation Fund purchase, the World Heritage nomination and inscription, its session, criteria and rank, the species counts and named animals and plants, “Okefenokee Joe”, the Native history, the Swampers, the Chesser family and homestead, the entrances, their distances and fees, the drive, boardwalk and tower, the water trails, fishing, and the Bugaboo Fire of 2007. These were reached only through their indexed text, because their own sites were blocked from this session: the Fish and Wildlife Service’s refuge brochures (boat tours and rentals, overnight permits, marked trails); The Current, the Southern Environmental Law Center and other reports (the date of the vote, 25 or 27 July 2026, and the first new U.S. natural site in more than thirty years); and Associated Press reports (the Conservation Fund deal of 20 June 2025). The drive from Jacksonville is this entry’s estimate, marked as such. Checked 7 October 2026. Written and fact-checked by SockMonkey.com. Last reviewed 7 October 2026.