Apennine Mountains

The Apennines run the entire length of the Italian peninsula, a 1,200-kilometre spine of folded rock that gives the country its mountainous interior and its distinctive boot-shaped profile. From the Ligurian coast near Genoa they curve down to Calabria and leap the Strait of Messina into Sicily, separating the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic sides of Italy. Their highest reaches, in the central Abruzzo region, hold the only true glacier on the peninsula and a string of medieval hill towns clinging to the slopes.

The range was raised by the same plate collision that built the Alps, as the African plate pushed against Europe, and it remains seismically restless, the source of many of Italy's damaging earthquakes. The highest summit is Corno Grande, in the Gran Sasso massif of Abruzzo, at about 2,912 metres. The Apennines are largely limestone, riddled with caves and gorges, and they wring rain from passing weather, feeding rivers such as the Tiber and Arno that water the plains and cities below.

These mountains shaped Italian history as both barrier and refuge, channelling Roman roads, sheltering monasteries and brigands, and dividing the regional cultures that still flavour Italian life. Hannibal struggled across them, and in the Second World War the German Gothic Line ran along their crest. Their high pastures gave rise to enduring traditions of cheese-making and transhumance, and protected areas such as Gran Sasso and Abruzzo national parks now guard wolves, chamois, and the rare Marsican brown bear.

• Italy
  A boot-shaped peninsula of art, food, and the legacy of Rome located in
• Europe
  A small, intricate continent of outsized influence located on
• Alps
  Europe's great arc of high peaks, glaciers, and Alpine valleys related range