Gorge. Valley. Canyon

They overlap. The exact name used is often a matter of local history. A "valley" is any lowland between elevations, usually with a river at the bottom. "Gorge" and "canyon" suggest that there is bare rock and steep sides. A "canyon" and a "gorge" are the same thing. "Canyon" is just an Anglicized spelling of the Spanish word "cañon." The Western United States which was originally settled by the Spanish, and has a long tradition of Mexican cultural heritage. You can see this by looking at the place names on a map of the United States. In the West: San Francisco, Los Angeles, the Sierra Nevada. So valleys with vertical sides of bare rock tend to be called "gorges" in the Eastern US and "canyons" in the Western US. Charlie Collingwood's pictures are perfect. But the real situation is not that clear. Landscape features are named by the people who live there. What would you call this place, which my wife and I have visited? This place has gentle, wooded slopes. However, its official name is Pine Creek Gorge, and its unofficial name is "The Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania!" To my mind this is not what I think of as a "gorge," but the people who live there call it a "gorge" so it IS a "gorge."