Europe’s third-long mountain arc still shelters big carnivores
The Carpathians arc roughly 1,500 kilometres across Central and Southeast Europe—third-longest on the continent after the Urals and Scandinavian ranges. From Austria and the Czech lands through Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Romania, and Serbia, they hold Europe’s densest brown bears, wolves, chamois, and lynxes, especially in Romania.
Only two European ranges run longer: the Urals at about 2,500 kilometres and the Scandinavian Mountains at about 1,700. The Carpathian summits top out in the Tatras above 2,600 metres, with Romania's Southern Carpathians close behind at over 2,550. Moving clockwise, the Western Carpathians cover parts of Austria, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland; the Eastern section crosses Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine and Romania; and the Southern section ends in Romania and Serbia. Geographers often call the northern fringe of the western and eastern parts the Outer Carpathians.
Beyond the big mammals, the mountains support more than a third of all plant species found in Europe. Their slopes and foothills are also rich in thermal and mineral springs, and Romania alone holds a third of the continent's total. Romania also has Europe's second-largest expanse of virgin forest after Russia, some 250,000 hectares, mostly in these mountains, and the Southern Carpathians form the largest unbroken forest area on the continent. Clearcutting and illegal logging, however, are eating into it at a high rate.
Ptolemy's Geographia in the second century AD first records the name Carpates, applied then to the western part; late Roman writers called the eastern ranges the Sarmatian Mountains. The name is often tied to the Carpi, a Dacian people living east of the range, and linguists treat it as a Paleo-Balkan word related to Albanian kárpë, meaning rock, and Messapic karpa, meaning tuff or limestone. Beskydy, the name of one group of ranges within the arc, also has an Albanian counterpart meaning high mountain pastures.
Medieval names varied with the observer. The Norse Hervarar saga gives a Germanic form, Harvaða fjöllum. Hungarian documents used Havasok, Thorchal or Tarczal, or called them the Snowy Mountains, Rus' chronicles knew them as the Hungarian Mountains, and Dimitrie Cantemir wrote of Transylvania's Mountains.
Source: Carpathian Mountains
