The Chestatee River (variant spellings Chestatie, Chestetee, Chostatee, Chosteta, none in modern use) is a river in the Appalachian Mountains of northern Georgia. It begins at the confluence of Dicks Creek (Lumpkin County) and Frogtown Creek (near the junction of U.S. 19 and U.S. 129) in northeastern Lumpkin County, flowing down by the county seat and former gold rush town of Dahlonega. It originally continued past the southern corner of the county, forming the entire eastern border of southern Dawson County with Hall County, and the far northern part of Forsyth County's border with Hall. It is a major tributary of the Chattahoochee River, which it ended into at a point which is now under the waters of Lake Lanier, since Buford Dam was built. The northwestern arm of the lake is called Chestatee Bay, which destroyed the town of Chestatee (called Atsunsta Ti Yi by the native Cherokee people) when it was submerged. The county boundaries still follow the original thalwegs of the river, with the lake coming as far up the river as Lumpkin's southernmost tip. At this point, the river forms an extremely small portion of the Lumpkin/Hall county line for about one mile (1.6 km) or 1.5 km.
The word "Chestatee" is a Cherokee word meaning roughly "pine torch place" or "place of lights", because they would use bonfires along the riverbanks to light their torches. They would then use these torches for hunting deer and other wild game in the forest. The Chestatee Regional Library System takes its name from the river.
There is at least one river gauge along the river, installed in 1907 at State Route 52 near Dahlonega. It is at latitude 34°31'41"N, longitude 83°56'23"W, at 1,128.6 feet (344.0 m) or 344.0 meters above mean sea level. The watershed area above this point is 153 square miles (400 km2) or 396km². The National Weather Service has not set a flood stage for this gauge. The highest level ever recorded was in 1967, at 25.17 feet (7.67 m) or 7.67 meters on August 23. This is about ten times its average height or depth.
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