Banat Highland Germans
The Banat Highland Germans or Banat Mountainous Germans are an ethnic German sub-group which is part of the Banat Swabians who have been living in the mountainous part of the Banat, corresponding to Caraș-Severin County situated in present-day south-western Romania.
Within the larger community of Banat Highland Germans, there have also been Zipser Germans (, an ethnic German minority group which mostly settled in Maramureș and southern Bucovina from Zips, present-day Slovakia. The Banat Highland Germans are part of the Romanian Germans.
Background
The Banat Highland Germans are a mixture of various German-speaking settlers from Salzkammergut, the South Tyrol, the Bohemian Forest, the Bavarian Forest, and Swabia. There were also Zipser colonists in the mountainous Banat. Consequently, they speak a certain series of different German dialects than the Banat Swabians in the lowlands of Banat, hence the differentiation in their name based on altitude or elevation.
History
The Banat Highland Germans constituted themselves as an ethnic German sub-group in the present-day mountainous region of Banat during the modern period, in the time of Austria-Hungary.
Like all other German minority groups in Romania, the Banat Highland Germans are represented by the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania, more specifically by the local branch in the mountainous Banat known in German as Demokratisches Forum der Banater Berglanddeutsche.