The Trading Path was a corridor of roads and trails between the Tsenacommacah or Chesapeake Bay region and the Cherokee, Catawba, and other Native-American countries in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Indigenous people had used and maintained much of the path for their expansive trading network for centuries prior to its use by Europeans and/or European-Americans. Native and later European/European-American settlements occupied key points along the path. That section of the Trading Path through the Carolina piedmont was also known as the Upper Road, and a portion between North Carolina and Georgia was called the Lower Cherokee Traders Path. The terminus of the path was near present-day Augusta, Georgia, a distance of 500 miles from the start of the trading path on the James River. On this southern terminus the path connected with other important paths to the west.