Carpathian Mountains

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For other uses, see Carpathian (disambiguation).

Carpathians

Western Carpathians, Tatra Mountains, Morskie

Oko in Poland
Highest point
Peak Gerlachovský štít
Elevation 2,655 m (8,711 ft)
Dimensions
Length 1,700 km (1,100 mi)
Naming
 Karpaty (Czech)
Native name  Karpaten (German)
  Kárpátok (Hungarian)
 Karpaty (Polish)

 Carpați (Romanian)

 Карпати / Karpati (Serbian)

 Karpaty (Slovak)

 Карпати /

Karpaty (Ukrainian)
Geography

The different sections of the Carpathians with

the borders of constituent countries
Countries List[show]
Range 47°00′N 25°30′ECoordinates:
coordinates 47°00′N 25°30′E
Borders on Alps
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians (/kɑːrˈpeɪθiənz/) are a mountain range system forming
an arc roughly 1,500 km (932 mi) long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the third-
longest mountain range in Europe after the Ural Mountains with 2,500 km (1,553 mi)
and Scandinavian Mountains with 1,700 km (1,056 mi).
They provide the habitat for the largest European populations of brown bears, wolves, chamois,
[1][2][3]
and lynxes, with the highest concentration in Romania, as well as over one third of all
[4]
European plant species. The Carpathians and their foothillsalso have many thermal and mineral
 [5][6]
waters, with Romania having one-third of the European total. Romania is likewise home to the
second-largest surface of virgin forests in Europe after Russia, totaling 250,000 hectares (65%),
[7]
most of them in the Carpathians, with the Southern Carpathians constituting Europe's largest
[8]
unfragmented forested area.
The Carpathians consist of a chain of mountain ranges that stretch in an arc from the Czech
Republic (3%) in the northwest through Slovakia (17%), Poland (10%), Hungary (4%)
[9][10][11][12]
and Ukraine (10%) Serbia (5%) and Romania (50%) in the southeast. The highest
range within the Carpathians is the Tatras, on the border of Slovakia and Poland, where the highest
peaks exceed 2,600 m (8,530 ft). The second-highest range is the Southern Carpathians in
Romania, where the highest peaks exceed 2,500 m (8,202 ft).
[13]
The divisions of the Carpathians are usually in three major sections:

 Western Carpathians—Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary

 Eastern Carpathians—southeastern Poland, eastern Slovakia, Ukraine, and Romania
[9][10][12]
 Southern Carpathians—Serbia and Romania
The term Outer Carpathians is frequently used to describe the northern rim of the Western and
Eastern Carpathians.
The most important cities in or near the Carpathians are: Bratislava and Košice in
Slovakia, Kraków in Poland, Cluj-Napoca, Sibiu, and Braşov in Romania, and Uzhhorod in Ukraine.

Contents
 1Name
 2Geography
2.1Cities and towns
o

2.2Highest peaks
o

2.3Highest peaks by country

o

2.4Mountain passes
o

 3Geology
 4Divisions of the Carpathians
 5Notable people
 6See also
 7References
 8Sources
 9External links
Name[edit]
Further information: Carpi (people) § Name etymology
In modern times, the range is called Karpaty in Czech, Polish and Slovak and Карпати (Karpaty)

in Ukrainian, Карпати / Karpati in Serbian, Carpați [karˈpat͡sʲ] (

listen) in Romanian, Karpaten in German, and Kárpátok in Hungarian.[14][15] Although the
[16]
toponym was recorded already by Ptolemy in the second century of the Christian era, the
[14]
modern form of the name is a neologism in most languages. For instance, Havasok ("Snowy
Mountains") was its medieval Hungarianname; Russian chronicles referred to it as "Hungarian
[15][14]
Mountains". Later sources, such as Dimitrie Cantemir and the Italian chronicler
Giovanandrea Gromo, referred to the range as "Transylvania's Mountains", while the 17th-century
historian Constantin Cantacuzino translated the name of the mountains in an Italian-Romanian
[14]
glossary to "Rumanian Mountains".

Relief map of the Carpathian Mountains

The name "Carpates" is highly associated with the old Dacian tribes called "Carpes" or "Carpi" who
lived in a large area from the east, north-east of the Black Sea to Transylvanian plains on the
present day Romania and Moldova. The name Carpates may ultimately be from the Proto Indo-
European root *sker-/*ker-, from which comes the Albanian word karpë (rock), and
[which?]
the Slavicword skála (rock, cliff), perhaps via a Dacian cognate which meant mountain,
rock, or rugged (cf. Germanic root *skerp-, Old Norse harfr "harrow", Gothic skarpo, Middle Low
German scharf "potsherd", and Modern High German Scherbe "shard", Old English scearp and
English sharp, Lithuanian kar~pas "cut, hack, notch", Latvian cìrpt "to shear, clip"). The archaic
Polish word karpa meant "rugged irregularities, underwater obstacles/rocks, rugged roots, or trunks".
The more common word skarpa means a sharp cliff or other vertical terrain. The name may instead
come from Indo-European *kwerp "to turn", akin to Old English hweorfan "to turn, change" (English
warp) and Greek καρπός karpós "wrist", perhaps referring to the way the mountain range bends or
[17]
veers in an L-shape.
In late Roman documents, the Eastern Carpathian Mountains were referred to as Montes
[18]
Sarmatici (meaning SarmatianMountains). The Western Carpathians were called Carpates, a
[citation needed]
name that is first recorded in Ptolemy's Geographia (second century AD).
In the Scandinavian Hervarar saga, which relates 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).
"Inter Alpes Huniae et Oceanum est Polonia" by Gervase of Tilbury, has described in his Otia
[19]
Imperialia ("Recreation for an Emperor") in 1211. Thirteenth- to fifteenth-century Hungarian
[19]
documents named the mountains Thorchal, Tarczal, or less frequently Montes Nivium.

Geography[edit]

Maramureș Mountains in north of Romania

View from Sanok in Poland

The northwestern Carpathians begin in Slovakia and southern Poland. They
surround Transcarpathia and Transylvania in a large semicircle, sweeping towards the southeast,
and end on the Danube near Orşova in Romania. The total length of the Carpathians is over
1,500 km (932 mi) and the mountain chain's width varies between 12 and 500 km (7 and 311 mi).
The highest altitudes of the Carpathians occur where they are widest. The system attains its greatest
breadth in the Transylvanian plateau and in the southern Tatra Mountains group – the highest range,
in which Gerlachovský štít in Slovakia is the highest peak at 2,655 m (8,711 ft) above sea level. The
2
Carpathians cover an area of 190,000 km (73,359 sq mi), and after the Alps, form the next-most
extensive mountain system in Europe.
Kežmarok in Slovakia

Tatra Mountains in Zakopane, Poland

Hutsul people, living in the Carpathian

mountains, circa 1872

Szczawnica in Poland, Pieniny, 1939

Shepherds in Beskids

The Feast of the Assumption of Mary in the

Polish Carpathians

Hutsul wedding in Ukraine

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 attain
an altitude over 2,500 m (8,202 ft) in only a few places, lack the bold peaks, extensive snowfields,
large glaciers, high waterfalls, and numerous large lakes that are common in the Alps. It was
believed that no area of the Carpathian range was covered in snow all year round and there were no
glaciers, but recent research by Polish scientists discovered one permafrost and glacial area in the
[20]
Tatra Mountains. 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 at only one point: the Leitha
Mountains at Bratislava. The river also separates them from the Balkan Mountains at Orşova in
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 to the southwest, the plain of the Lower Danube (Romania) to the south, and
the Galician plain to the northeast.
Cities and towns[edit]
Important cities and towns in or near the Carpathians are, in approximate descending order of
population:

 Vienna (Vienna Woods, Austria)

 Kraków (Poland)
 Bratislava (Slovakia)
 Cluj-Napoca (Romania)
 Chernivtsi (Ukraine)
 Braşov (Romania)
 Košice (Slovakia)
 Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukraine)
 Oradea (Romania)
 Bielsko-Biała (Poland)
 Miskolc (Hungary)
 Sibiu (Romania)
 Târgu Mureș (Romania)
 Baia Mare (Romania)
 Uzhhorod (Ukraine)
 Tarnów (Poland)
 Râmnicu Vâlcea (Romania)
 Mukachevo (Ukraine)
 Drohobych (Ukraine)
 Piatra Neamț (Romania)
 Nowy Sącz (Poland)
 Suceava (Romania)
 Vršac (Serbia)
 Târgu Jiu (Romania)
 Drobeta-Turnu Severin (Romania)
 Reșița (Romania)
 Žilina (Slovakia)
 Bistrița (Romania)
 Banská Bystrica (Slovakia)
 Zvolen (Slovakia)
 Deva (Romania)
 Zlín (Czech Republic)
 Hunedoara (Romania)
 Martin (Slovakia)
 Zalău (Romania)
 Przemyśl (Poland)
 Krosno (Poland)
 Sanok (Poland)
 Alba Iulia (Romania)
 Sfântu Gheorghe (Romania)
 Turda (Romania)
 Mediaș (Romania)
 Poprad (Slovakia)
 Petroșani (Romania)
 Miercurea Ciuc (Romania)
 Făgăraș (Romania)
 Odorheiu Secuiesc (Romania)
 Jasło (Poland)
 Cieszyn (Polska)
 Nowy Targ (Poland)
 Żywiec (Poland)
 Zakopane (Poland)
 Petrila (Romania)
 Târgu Neamț (Romania)
 Câmpulung Moldovenesc (Romania)
 Gheorgheni (Romania)
 Rakhiv (Ukraine)
 Vatra Dornei (Romania)
 Rabka-Zdrój (Poland)
 Bor (Serbia)
Highest peaks[edit]
This is an (incomplete) list of the peaks of the Carpathians having summits over 2,500 metres
(8,200 ft), with their heights, geologic divisions, and locations.

Ge H
olo Nati ei
County
Pea gic on gh
(Counties
k div (Nati t
)
isio ons) (m
ns )

Gerlac
High Prešov
hovský Slovakia 2,655
Tatras Region
štít

Gerlac
High Prešov
hovská Slovakia 2,642
Tatras Region
veža

Lomni High Prešov

Slovakia 2,633
cký štít Tatras Region

Ľadový High Prešov

Slovakia 2,627
štít Tatras Region
 Ge H
olo Nati ei
County
Pea gic on gh
(Counties
k div (Nati t
)
isio ons) (m
ns )

Pyšný High Prešov

Slovakia 2,623
štít Tatras Region

Zadný
High Prešov
Gerlac Slovakia 2,616
Tatras Region
h

Lavíno High Prešov

Slovakia 2,606
vý štít Tatras Region

Malý
High Prešov
Ľadový Slovakia 2,602
Tatras Region
štít

Kotlov High Slovakia Prešov 2,601

 Ge H
olo Nati ei
County
Pea gic on gh
(Counties
k div (Nati t
)
isio ons) (m
ns )
ý štít Tatras Region

Lavíno High Prešov

Slovakia 2,600
vá veža Tatras Region

Malý
High Prešov
Pyšný Slovakia 2,591
Tatras Region
štít

Veľká
High Prešov
Litvoro Slovakia 2,581
Tatras Region
vá veža

Strapat High Prešov

Slovakia 2,565
á veža Tatras Region
 Ge H
olo Nati ei
County
Pea gic on gh
(Counties
k div (Nati t
)
isio ons) (m
ns )

Kežma
High Prešov
rský Slovakia 2,556
Tatras Region
štít

High Prešov
Vysoká Slovakia 2,547
Tatras Region

Făgăra
Moldo ş Romani
Argeș 2,544
veanu Mount a
ains

Făgăra Romani
Negoiu ș Argeș 2,535
a
Mount
 Ge H
olo Nati ei
County
Pea gic on gh
(Counties
k div (Nati t
)
isio ons) (m
ns )
ains

Făgăra
Viştea ş Romani
Brașov 2,527
Mare Mount a
ains

Parâng
Parâng Romani Alba, Gorj, H
Mount 2,519
u Mare a unedoara
ains

Făgăra
Lespez ș Romani
Sibiu 2,517
i Mount a
ains
 Ge H
olo Nati ei
County
Pea gic on gh
(Counties
k div (Nati t
)
isio ons) (m
ns )

Reteza
Peleag t Romani
Hunedoara 2,509
a Mount a
ains

Reteza
t Romani
Păpușa Hunedoara 2,508
Mount a
ains

Vânăto Făgăra
area lui ș Romani
Argeș 2,507
Butean Mount a
u ains
 Ge H
olo Nati ei
County
Pea gic on gh
(Counties
k div (Nati t
)
isio ons) (m
ns )

Omu Bucegi Prahova, Bra

Romani
(mount Mount șov, Dâmbov 2,505
a
ain) ains ița

Făgăra
Cornul
ș Romani
Călțun Sibiu 2,505
Mount a
ului
ains

Ocolit Bucegi Prahova, Bra

Romani
(Bucur Mount șov, Dâmbov 2,503
a
a) ains ița

High Poland, Lesser

Rysy Poland 2,503
Tatras Slovakia
Voivodeship,
 Ge H
olo Nati ei
County
Pea gic on gh
(Counties
k div (Nati t
)
isio ons) (m
ns )
Prešov
Region

Făgăra
ș Romani
Dara Sibiu 2,500
Mount a
ains