The Suwannee River (also spelled Suwanee River or Swanee River) is a river that runs through south Georgia southward into Florida in the Southern United States. It is a wild blackwater river, about 246 miles (396 km) long. The Suwannee River is the site of the prehistoric Suwanee Straits that separated the Florida peninsula from the Florida panhandle and the rest of the continent. Spelled as "Swanee", it is the namesake of two famous songs: Stephen Foster's "Swanee River" (1851) and George Gershwin and Irving Caesar's "Swanee" (1919).