Baetic Cordillera

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The Baetic Cordillera is a mountain system streching from Morocco, through Gibraltar and along the southern and eastern parts of Spain. Also known as the Baetic ranges or Baetic mountains, and in Spanish as the Sistema Penibético, the Baetic Cordillera is made up of multiple mountain ranges that reach from western Andalucia to Murcia and Valencia, trending generally southwest-northeast. The Sierra Nevada and the Aljibe Mountains of Andalucia are part of the Baetic system.

The Baetic Cordillera is home to a number of Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and shrub plant communities, including shrublands, oak woodlands, broadleaf forests, and coniferous forests, which vary with elevation, soils, and topography. The cordillera, together with the Rif Mountains of Morocco which face the Baetic Cordillera across the Alboran Sea, is one of the Mediterranean basin's ten biodiversity hotspots, known to ecologists as the Baetic-Rifan complex. The Baetic mountains are home to a rich assemblage of Mediterranean plants, including a number of relict species from the ancient laurel forests, which covered much of the Mediterranean basin millions of years ago when it was more humid.

The Baetic Cordillera comprises a number of mountain chains in Southern Spain and Northern Morocco, separated from each other by the Alboran Sea. Gibraltar is also considered to be part of the Baetic Cordillera[1]. Most of these mountain chains are better-known by their own name. The Cordillera Bética forms a great arc that follows the Moroccan coast from Oujda in the east to Tanger in the west, then crosses the Strait of Gibraltar and goes east again from Cádiz to Valencia and the Balearic Islands.

To the south, the Baetic Cordillera is separated from the Atlas by the Fès basin, to the north from the Meseta Central (here the Sierra Morena) by the basin of the Guadalquivir.

[edit] Subdivision

The Baetic Cordillera encompasses the following mountain chains:

In Gibraltar:

In Morocco:

In Spain:

  • the Serranía de Ronda
  • the Sierra Nevada
  • the Sierra de los Filabres
  • the Sierra de Alhamilla
  • the Sierra Cabrera
  • the Sierra Almagrera
  • the Sierra Almagro
  • the Sierra Almen

[edit] References

  1. ^ A Guide to the Upper Rock Nature Reserve


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General sub-fields of physical geography