At Bainbridge it joins Lake Seminole, formed at its confluence with the Chattahoochee River upstream from the Jim Woodruff Dam, very near the Florida state line.

In the 1970s, a plan by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build a dam at Sprewell Bluff in Upson County was defeated by Jimmy Carter, then the Governor of Georgia, and other supporters.

In its upper reaches in the red hills of the Piedmont, it flows through a deeply incised channel etched into crystalline rocks.

South of Lake Blackshear, it transforms again, flowing through a channel in limestone rock above the Upper Floridan Aquifer below southwestern Georgia and northwestern Florida [citation needed].

In 1994, during flooding from Tropical Storm Alberto, the river crested at 43 feet (13 m) in Albany, resulting in the emergency evacuation of over 23,000 residents.

Interstate 75 was closed in Macon, and Albany State University was also seriously flooded, as the river became a few miles or several kilometers wide in some places.

Montezuma, Georgia was completely inundated after the Flint River topped the 29-foot levee protecting the town from floodwater.

No problems were reported after an unusually heavy 4 inches (10 cm) of rain officially fell at the airport at the beginning of March 2009.

American country music singer Luke Bryan, a native of Georgia, references the river in his songs "That's My Kind of Night"; "Huntin', Fishin' & Lovin' Every Day"; and "We Rode in Trucks".