Home › Landforms › Mountain Ranges
Pyrenees
The natural border between France and Spain, with Andorra tucked in its heights
The Pyrenees draw a clean line across the neck of the Iberian Peninsula, running nearly 500 kilometres from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and forming the long frontier between France and Spain. Compact but rugged, the range encloses the tiny mountain state of Andorra and shelters some of Europe's last wild high country, where brown bears still roam and isolated valleys preserved distinct languages and customs. Its highest summits, clustered in the centre, stay snow-capped well into summer.
Like the Alps and the Atlas, the Pyrenees were raised by the collision of two plates, here the Iberian and European, which folded and faulted the rock into a chain steeper and less penetrable than its modest length suggests. The high point is Aneto, in the Spanish province of Huesca, at about 3,404 metres, capped by a small glacier. The range is asymmetric, falling gently toward France and more abruptly to the Spanish side, and it harbours dramatic glacial cirques, deep gorges, and high lakes.
Because few passes cross it easily, the Pyrenees long served as a cultural and political barrier, helping preserve the Basque language at its western end and shaping the medieval kingdoms on either side. Pilgrims bound for Santiago de Compostela funnelled through its passes, and the dramatic gorge at Roncesvalles entered legend through the medieval Song of Roland. Today the range is a magnet for hikers, skiers, and Tour de France climbers, and Andorra thrives as a duty-free retreat in its midst.