Carpathian Mountains

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This article is about a terrestrial mountain range. For a lunar range, see Montes Carpatus
Satellite image of the Carpathians.
Satellite image of the Carpathians.
The Southern Carpathians in Romania.
The Southern Carpathians in Romania.
The Transylvanian Western Carpathians (Apuseni Mountains).
The Transylvanian Western Carpathians (Apuseni Mountains).
Inner Western Carpathians, Tatra, Poland.
Inner Western Carpathians, Tatra, Poland.
Inner Western Carpathians, Tatra, Poland.
Inner Western Carpathians, Tatra, Poland.

The Carpathian Mountains (Romanian: Munţii Carpaţi; Polish, Czech, and Slovak: Karpaty; Ukrainian: Карпати (Karpaty); German: Karpaten; Serbian: Karpati; Hungarian: Kárpátok) are the eastern wing of the great Central Mountain System of Europe, curving 1500 km (~900 miles) along the borders of Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine, Austria, Serbia, and northern Hungary.

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[edit] Name

The name 'Karpetes' may ultimately be from the Proto Indo-European root *sker-/*ker-, from which comes the Albanian word karpë (rock), perhaps by way of a Dacian word which meant 'mountain,' rock, or rugged. Polish archaic word karpa mean rugged irregularities, underwater obstacles/rocks, rugged roots or trunks. Common word skarpa is sharp cliff or other vertical terrain.

In late Roman documents, the Eastern Carpathian Mountains were referred to as Montes Sarmatici. The Western Carpathians were called Carpates. The name Carpates is first recorded in Ptolemy's Geography. Around 310 AD the Carpathians are mentioned as Montes Serrorum by the Flavius Galerius Valerius Licinianus Licinius.

The name of the Carpi, a Dacian tribe may have been derived from the name of the Carpathian Mountains. Name recorded in late Roman Empire documents (Zosimus) as living until 381 on the Eastern Carpathian slopes. Alternatively the mountain range's name may be derived from the Dacian tribe.

In Hungarian XIII- i XIV century Hungarian documents named the mountains Thorchal, Tarczal or less frequently Montes Nivium.

In the Scandinavian Hervarar saga, which describes ancient Germanic legends about battles between Goths and Huns, the name Karpates appears in the predictable Germanic form as Harvaða fjöllum (see Grimm's law).

[edit] Geography

The Carpathians begin on the Danube near Bratislava. They surround Transcarpathia and Transylvania in a large semicircle, sweeping towards the south-west, and end on the Danube near Orşova, in Romania. The total length of the Carpathians is over 1,500 km, and the mountain chain's width varies between 12 and 500 km. The greatest width of the Carpathians corresponds with its highest altitudes. The system attains its greatest breadth in the Transylvanian plateau and in the meridian of the Tatra group (the highest range, with Gerlachovský štít, at 2,655 m (8,705 feet) above sea level in Slovak territory near the Polish border). It covers an area of 190,000 km², and, after the Alps, is the most extensive mountain system in Europe.

Although commonly referred to as a mountain chain, the Carpathians do not actually form an uninterrupted chain of mountains. Rather, they consist of several orographically and geologically distinctive groups, presenting as great a structural variety as the Alps. The Carpathians, which only in a few places attain an altitude of over 2,500 m, lack the bold peaks, extensive snow-fields, large glaciers, high waterfalls, and numerous large lakes that are common in the Alps. No area of the Carpathian range is covered in snow year-round, and there are no glaciers. The Carpathians at their highest altitude are only as high as the Middle Region of the Alps, with which they share a common appearance, climate, and flora.

The Carpathians are separated from the Alps by the Danube. The two ranges meet only at one point: the Leitha Mountains at Bratislava. The river also separates them from the Stara Planina, or "Balkan Mountains," at Orşova, Romania. The valley of the March and Oder separates the Carpathians from the Silesian and Moravian chains, which belong to the middle wing of the great Central Mountain System of Europe. Unlike the other wings of the system, the Carpathians, which form the watershed between the northern seas and the Black Sea, are surrounded on all sides by plains, namely the Pannonian plain on the southwest, the plain of the Lower Danube (Romania) on the south, and the Galician plain on the northeast.

[edit] Geology

The Carpathian Mountains were formed during the Alpine orogeny.

[edit] Divisions

Main article: Divisions of the Carpathians

[edit] Horizontal division

  • Outer Carpathians (= Outer Western Carpathians and Outer Eastern Carpathians, usually incl. the corresponding Outer Carpathian Depressions)
  • Inner Carpathians (= Inner Western Carpathians, Inner Eastern Carpathians, and all the remaining Carpathians)

A major part of the western and northeastern Outer Carpathians in Poland, Ukraine and Slovakia is traditionally called Beskids.

[edit] Vertical and general division

What follows is a practical outline of the Carpathian subdivisions (clockwise from the west, numbers refer to the map):

  • Western Carpathians:
    • 1 Outer Western Carpathians:
      • Austrian - South-Moravian Carpathians
      • Central Moravian Carpathians
      • Slovak-Moravian Carpathians
      • West-Beskidian Piedmont
      • Western Beskids
      • Central Beskids
      • Eastern Beskids
      • Podhale-Magura Area
Map of the Carpathian subdivisions.
Map of the Carpathian subdivisions.
  • South Eastern Carpathians (= Eastern Carpathians in a wider sense):
  • Outer Carpathian Depressions (they surround the Carpathians and are normally considered part of the corresponding adjacent above main groups)

The geological border between the Western and Eastern Carpathians runs approximately along the line (south to north) between the towns Michalovce - Bardejov - Nowy Sącz - Tarnów. In older systems the border runs more in the east – at the line (north to south) along the rivers San and Osława (PL) – the town of Snina (SK) – river Tur'ia (UA). Biologists, however, shift the border even further to the east.

The border between the Eastern and Southern Carpathians is formed by the Predeal Pass, south of Braşov and the Prahova Valley.

The Ukrainians sometimes denote as "Eastern Carpathians" only the Ukrainian Carpathians (or Wooded Carpathians), i.e., basically the part situated largely on their territory (i.e., to the north of the Prislop Pass), while the Romanians sometimes denote as "Eastern Carpathians" only the other part, which lies on their territory (i.e., from the Ukrainian border or from the Prislop Pass to the south).

Also, the Romanians divide the Eastern Carpathians on their territory into three simplified geographical groups (north, center, south), instead of Outer and Inner Eastern Carpathians. These are:

  • Carpaţii Maramureşului şi ai Bucovinei (Carpathians of Maramureş and Bucovina)
  • Carpaţii Moldo-Transilvani (Moldavian-Transylvanian Carpathians)
  • Carpaţii de Curbură/Carpaţii Curburii

[edit] Convention on the protection of the Carpathians

A Framework Convention on the Protection and Sustainable Development of the Carpathians [1] was signed in 2003 between the seven participating states, following an international consultation process facilitated by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

[edit] See also


Carpathians
Carpathian Mountains

Regions: Inner Western • Outer Western • Inner North-Eastern • Outer North-Eastern • Inner Eastern • Outer Eastern • Transylvanian Alps • Apuseni • South-Western • Transylvanian Plateau • Serbian Carpathians


[edit] External links

Coordinates: 47°00′N 25°30′E

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