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Carpathian Mountains
The great sweeping arc of central and eastern Europe
The Carpathians curve like a great scythe through central and eastern Europe, about 1,500 kilometres of forested ridges and limestone peaks looping from the outskirts of Vienna down through Slovakia, Poland, and Ukraine and around into the heart of Romania. They shelter the continent's largest remaining tracts of old-growth forest and one of its healthiest populations of bears, wolves, and lynx. Less dramatic in height than the Alps, they are wilder, lonelier, and steeped in folklore.
The range is part of the same Alpine mountain belt, thrown up as the African and European plates converged, but it is gentler and more heavily forested than the Alps, with broad wooded slopes broken by sharp limestone massifs such as the High Tatras. The highest point, Gerlachovský štít in Slovakia, reaches about 2,655 metres. The Carpathians divide into Western, Eastern, and Southern sections and enclose the Pannonian and Transylvanian basins, giving rise to rivers including tributaries of the Danube and the Vistula.
These mountains shaped the borders and identities of half a dozen nations and gave the world the dark legend of Transylvania, the upland heart of Romania where Bram Stoker set his vampire count. Shepherding communities preserved distinct dialects and crafts across the range, and its forests sheltered partisans and refugees through the upheavals of the twentieth century. Today the Carpathians are prized as one of Europe's last great wildernesses, with new national parks and reintroduction projects guarding their forests.