The river flows through the counties of Transylvania, Buncombe, Henderson, and Madison in North Carolina, and Cocke, Jefferson, Sevier, and Knox in Tennessee.

The French Broad River is believed to be one of the oldest in the world, cutting over eons through ancient rocks in the Southern Appalachian Mountains.

[8] The French Broad predates the Alleghanian orogeny, through the resulting mountains it cuts; however, the current topographic relief of the Southern Appalachians is relatively new, making it virtually impossible to estimate the age of the river.

[9] The Cherokee people, the historic Indigenous Americans who occupied the area at the time of European invasion and conquest, referred to the river by different names: Poelico and Agiqua ("broad") in the mountains of the headwaters; Zillicoah upriver of the confluence at present-day Asheville; and Tahkeeosteh (racing waters) from Asheville downriver.

[10] The river is considered to roughly mark the eastern boundary of the Cherokee homelands in this region, which included areas of present-day northwestern South Carolina, northeastern Georgia, and southeastern Tennessee.

Initiated as a project during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Douglas Dam was completed in the 1940s on the lower French Broad by the TVA to provide electricity and flood control.