Eastern Continental Divide in the context of "Indian Reserve (1763)"

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III of Great Britain on 7 October 1763. It followed the Treaty of Paris (1763), which formally ended the Seven Years' War and transferred French territory in North America to Great Britain. The proclamation at least temporarily forbade all new settlements west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains, which was delineated as an Indian Reserve. Exclusion from the vast region of Trans-Appalachia created discontent between Britain and colonial land speculators and potential settlers. The proclamation and access to western lands was one of the first significant areas of dispute between Britain and the Thirteen Colonies and became a contributing factor leading to the American Revolution. The 1763 proclamation line is more or less similar to the Eastern Continental Divide, extending from Georgia in the south to the divide's northern terminus near the middle of the north border of Pennsylvania, where it intersects the northeasterly St. Lawrence Divide, and extends further through New England.

The Royal Proclamation continues to be of legal importance to First Nations in Canada, being the first legal recognition of aboriginal title, rights and freedoms. It is recognized in the Constitution Act, 1982, partly due to direct action by Indigenous peoples of Canada, known as the Constitution Express movement of 1980–1982.

The Allegheny Front is the major southeast- or east-facing escarpment in the Allegheny Mountains in southern Pennsylvania, western Maryland, eastern West Virginia, and western Virginia. The Allegheny Front forms the boundary between the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians to its east and the Appalachian Plateau (locally called the Allegheny Plateau) to its west. The Front is closely associated with the Appalachian Mountains' Eastern Continental Divide, which in this area divides the waters of the Ohio/Mississippi river system, flowing to the Gulf of Mexico, from rivers flowing into Chesapeake Bay and from there into the Atlantic Ocean.

The Allegheny Front and the Eastern Continental Divide do not always coincide; for example, the North Branch of the Potomac River begins well west of the Front, at the Fairfax Stone near the southwestern tip of Maryland, about 10 miles (16 km) and across the actual divide from the headwaters of the Youghiogheny River draining northwards into the Monongahela and Ohio rivers. The Front and the Divide diverge completely in central Pennsylvania where the West Branch Susquehanna River originates north of the Allegheny Front.

The Savannah River is a major river in the Southeastern United States, forming most of the border between the states of Georgia and South Carolina. The river flows from the Appalachian Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, for a total distance of about 301 miles (484 km). The Savannah was formed by the confluence of the Tugaloo River and the Seneca River. Today this confluence is part of Lake Hartwell, a man-made reservoir constructed between 1955 and 1964.

Two tributaries of the Savannah, the Tugaloo River and the Chattooga River, form Georgia's northernmost border with South Carolina. A tributary of the Tugaloo, the Tallulah River, forms the northwest branch of the Savannah and features the two-mile-long (3 km) and almost 1,000-foot-deep (300 m) Tallulah Gorge. The Savannah River's drainage basin extends into the southeastern Appalachian Mountains and the state of North Carolina, and is bounded by the Eastern Continental Divide.

The Saint Lawrence River Divide is a continental divide in central and eastern North America that separates the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin from the southerly Atlantic Ocean watersheds. Water, including rainfall and snowfall, lakes, rivers and streams, north and west of the divide, drains into the Gulf of St. Lawrence or the Labrador Sea; water south and east of the divide drains into the Atlantic Ocean (east of the Eastern Continental Divide, ECD) or Gulf of Mexico (west of the ECD). The divide is one of six continental divides in North America that demarcate several watersheds that flow to different gulfs, seas or oceans.