It is 78.5 miles (126.3 km) long with its headwaters in Linville Gap to the South Fork Holston River at Boone Lake.

The Watauga River rises from a spring located south to the base of Peak Mountain at Linville Gap in Avery County, North Carolina.

TVA releases approximately 130 cubic feet per second (3.7 m3/s) of discharged water back into the Watauga River during the summer months.

Most documents agree that the name is of Native American origin, though which nation, tribe or language it descends from, and its meaning, are in question.

A historic Cherokee town known as Watauga was located along the Little Tennessee River near present-day Franklin, North Carolina, in their homelands.

They realized that the British Proclamation of 1763, forbidding colonial settlement west of the Blue Ridge Mountains in order to protect Native American territories, was essentially unenforceable.

[12] Wilbur Dam was constructed on the Watauga River by the former Tennessee Electric Power Company, a privately owned utility purchased by the TVA in the late 1930s.

[16] For commercial whitewater rafting and kayaking on the Watauga River, the most popular Carter County "put-in" is immediately downstream of the TVA Wilbur Dam, and the most popular "take-out" is 2 to 2½ hours downstream (depending upon the volume of the reservoir release and other factors) at the Blackbottom riverside portion of the city linear trail park in Elizabethton.

It features continuous steep boulder bed rapids dropping up to 150 feet per mile (28 m/km), and several falls and ledges only runnable by expert paddlers.

Amenities and recreational opportunities at the TVA Watauga Dam Tailwater Campground include 29 camp sites with electric hookups, rest rooms with heated showers and flush toilets, dump station, public phone, picnic tables and grills, canoe access, boat ramps above and below dam, lake and river fishing, hiking trail, walking trail, wildlife viewing area, and birdwatching.