Alps
The Alps are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries : Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, and Hungary.
The Alpine arch extends from Nice on the western Mediterranean to Trieste on the Adriatic and Vienna at the beginning of the Pannonian Basin. The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn.
Mont Blanc spans the French-Italian border, and at is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains 82 peaks higher than List of Alpine four-thousanders|.
The altitude and size of the range affect the climate in Europe; in the mountains, precipitation levels vary greatly and climatic conditions consist of distinct zones. Wildlife such as ibex live in the higher peaks to elevations of, and plants such as edelweiss grow in rocky areas in lower elevations as well as in higher elevations.
Evidence of human habitation in the Alps goes back to the Palaeolithic era. A mummified man, determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991.
By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was well established. Hannibal notably crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800, Napoleon crossed one of the mountain passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, and artists, in particular, the Romanticists, followed by the Golden Age of Alpinism as mountaineers began to ascend the peaks of the Alps.
The Alpine region has a strong cultural identity. Traditional practices such as farming, cheese making, and woodworking still thrive in Alpine villages. However, the tourist industry began to grow early in the 20th century and expanded significantly after World War II, eventually becoming the dominant industry by the end of the century.
The Winter Olympic Games have been hosted in the Swiss, French, Italian, Austrian and German Alps. the region is home to 14 million people and has 120 million annual visitors.
Etymology and toponymy
The English word Alps comes from the Latin Alpes.The Latin word Alpes could possibly come from the adjective albus, or could possibly come from the Greek goddess Alphito, whose name is related to alphita, the "white flour"; alphos, a dull white leprosy; and finally the Proto-Indo-European word *albʰós. Similarly, the river god Alpheus is also supposed to derive from the Greek alphos and means whitish.
In his commentary on the Aeneid of Virgil, the late fourth-century grammarian Maurus Servius Honoratus says that all high mountains are called Alpes by Celts.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the Latin Alpes might derive from a pre-Indo-European word *alb "hill"; "Albania" is a related derivation. Albania, the name of the region known as the country of Albania, has been used as a name for several mountainous areas across Europe.
In Roman times, "Albania" was a name for the eastern Caucasus, while in the English languages "Albania" was occasionally used as a name for Scotland, although it is more likely derived from the Latin word albus, the colour white.
In modern languages the term alp, alm, albe or alpe refers to grazing pastures in the alpine regions below the glaciers, not the peaks.
An alp refers to a high mountain pasture, typically near or above the tree line, where cows and other livestock are taken to be grazed during the summer months and where huts and hay barns can be found, sometimes constituting tiny hamlets. Therefore, the term "the Alps", as a reference to the mountains, is a misnomer. The term for the mountain peaks varies by nation and language: words such as Horn, Kogel, Kopf, Gipfel, Spitze, Stock, and Berg are used in German-speaking regions; Mont, Pic, Tête, Pointe, Dent, Roche, and Aiguille in French-speaking regions; and Monte, Picco, Corno, Punta, Pizzo, or Cima in Italian-speaking regions.
Geography
The Alps are a crescent shaped geographic feature of central Europe that ranges in an arc from east to west and is in width. The mean height of the mountain peaks is. The range stretches from the Mediterranean Sea north above the Po basin, extending through France from Grenoble, and stretching eastward through mid and southern Switzerland. The range continues onward toward Vienna, Austria, and southeast to the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia.To the south it dips into northern Italy and to the north extends to the southern border of Bavaria in Germany. In areas like Chiasso, Switzerland, and Allgäu, Bavaria, the demarcation between the mountain range and the flatlands is clear; in other places such as Geneva, it is less clear.
The Alps are found in the following countries: Austria, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Slovenia, Liechtenstein and Monaco.
The highest portion of the range is divided by the glacial trough of the Rhône valley, from Mont Blanc to the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa on the southern side, and the Bernese Alps on the northern. The peaks in the easterly portion of the range, in Austria and Slovenia, are smaller than those in the central and western portions.
The variances in nomenclature in the region spanned by the Alps make classification of the mountains and subregions difficult, but a general classification is that of the Eastern Alps and Western Alps with the divide between the two occurring in eastern Switzerland according to geologist Stefan Schmid, near the Splügen Pass.
File:Lanersbach.jpg|thumb|A typical alpine village in the Tuxertal valley of Tyrol, Austria
The highest peaks of the Western Alps and Eastern Alps, respectively, are Mont Blanc, at, and Piz Bernina, at. The second-highest major peaks are Monte Rosa, at, and Ortler, at, respectively.
A series of lower mountain ranges run parallel to the main chain of the Alps, including the French Prealps in France and the Jura Mountains in Switzerland and France. The secondary chain of the Alps follows the watershed from the Mediterranean Sea to the Wienerwald, passing over many of the highest and most well-known peaks in the Alps. From the Colle di Cadibona to Col de Tende it runs westwards, before turning to the northwest and then, near the Colle della Maddalena, to the north. Upon reaching the Swiss border, the line of the main chain heads approximately east-northeast, a heading it follows until its end near Vienna.
The northeast end of the Alpine arc, directly on the Danube, which flows into the Black Sea, is the Leopoldsberg near Vienna. In contrast, the southeastern part of the Alps ends on the Adriatic Sea in the area around Trieste towards Duino and Barcola.
Passes
Crossing routes by foot, road, or train are known as passes, and usually consist of depressions in the mountains in which a valley leads from the plains and hilly pre-mountainous zones.The Alps have been crossed for explorations, commerce, military purposes, political reasons, religious and cultural motivations, and migrations for thousands of years. For a thousands of years these routes had been footpaths only. Many had been used by explorers of pre-civilised cultures at least since Stone Ages. The oldest known human mummy, the Ötzi, has been found 1991 on the Tisenjoch on the Austrian-Italian border; he has been killed there about 5300 years ago. The Roman built several Roman Roads over several mountain passes in the Alps in order to control Roman territory west, north, north-east of their home base. Usually, they were also used by animal drawn carts.
Merchant traffic was supported by pack animals such as mules, horses, and even elephants usually on footpaths only. Already during the Roman Empire, but again in the late Middle Ages heavy carts and sleighs were in use on drivable roads over Alpine passes.
In the medieval period, hospices were established by religious orders at the summits of many of the main passes.
Nowadays, the most important passes are the Col de l'Iseran, the Col Agnel, the Brenner Pass, the Mont Cenis Pass, the Great St. Bernard Pass, the Col de Tende, the Saint Gotthard Pass, the Semmering Pass, the Simplon Pass, and the Stelvio Pass.
Crossing the Italian-Austrian border, the Brenner Pass separates the Ötztal Alps and Zillertal Alps and has been in use as a regular trading route since the Roman Times, and again since 14th century. The lowest of the Alpine passes at is the Semmering Pass crossing from Lower Austria to Styria. It has been in continuous use as a trade route since the 12th century, instead of the Roman Road over the Wechsel Pass. A railroad with a tunnel long was built along the route of the pass in the mid-19th century.
With a summit of, the Great St Bernard Pass is one of the highest in the Alps, crossing the Italian-Swiss border east of the Pennine Alps along the flanks of Mont Blanc. The pass was already used by the Romans to control north-western provinces, and later by Napoleon Bonaparte to cross 40,000 troops in 1800.
The Mont Cenis pass has been a major commercial and military road between Western Europe and Italy. The pass was crossed by many troops on their way to the Italian peninsula. From Constantine I, Pepin the Short and Charlemagne to Henry IV, Napoléon and more recently the German Gebirgsjägers during World War II.
In the 19th century, the principal passes of the Alps were modernized by engineers to speed up passenger and freight transport. The Mont Cenis Pass has been supplanted by the Fréjus Rail Tunnel opening in 1871, while the Fréjus Road Tunnel opened 1980. Railway lines could not be built in the Alps without tunnels and bridges. Apart from the Mont Cenis Railway Tunnel the Semmering Railway Tunnel and the St Gotthard Railway Tunnel were built between 1872 and 1882. By the early 20th century eight trans-alpine railway lines had been put into operation.
The Saint Gotthard Pass crosses from Central Switzerland to Ticino. In 1882 the Saint Gotthard Railway Tunnel was opened connecting Lucerne in Switzerland, with Milan in Italy. 98 years later followed the Gotthard Road Tunnel connecting the A2 motorway in Göschenen on the north side with Airolo on the south side, exactly like the railway tunnel.
On 1 June 2016 the world's longest railway tunnel, the Gotthard Base Tunnel, was opened, which connects Erstfeld in canton of Uri with Bodio in canton of Ticino by two single tubes of. It is the first tunnel that traverses the Alps on a flat route. From 11 December 2016, it has been part of the regular railway timetable and used hourly as standard ride between Basel/Lucerne/Zurich and Bellinzona/Lugano/Milan.
The highest pass in the alps is the Col de l'Iseran in Savoy at, followed by the Stelvio Pass in northern Italy at ; the road was built in the 1820s.