The Sudetes ( ), also known as the Sudeten Mountains or Sudetic Mountains, is a geomorphological subprovince of the Bohemian Massif province in Central Europe, shared by the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany. They consist mainly of mountain ranges and are the highest part of the Bohemian Massif. They stretch from the Saxon capital of Dresden in the northwest across to the region of Lower Silesia in Poland and to the city of Ostrava in the Czech Republic in the east. Geographically the Sudetes are a Mittelgebirge with some characteristics typical of high mountains. Its plateaus and subtle summit relief makes the Sudetes more akin to mountains of Northern Europe than to the Alps.
In the east of the Sudetes, the Moravian Gate and Ostrava Basin separates from the Carpathian Mountains. The Sudetes' highest mountain is Sněžka () at , which is also the highest mountain of the Czech Republic, Bohemia, Silesia, and Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It lies in the Giant Mountains on the border between the Czech Republic and Poland. Praděd (1,491 m/4,893 ft) in the Hrubý Jeseník mountains is the highest mountain of Moravia. Lusatia's highest point (1,072 m/3,517 ft) lies on Smrk mountain in the Jizera Mountains, and the Sudetes' highest mountain in Germany, which is also the country's highest mountain east of the river Elbe, is Lausche (793 m/2,600 ft) in the Lusatian Mountains. The most notable rivers rising in the Sudetes are the Elbe, Oder, Spree, Morava, Bóbr, Lusatian Neisse, Eastern Neisse, Jizera and Kwisa. The highest parts of the Sudetes are protected by national parks; Karkonosze and Stołowe in Poland and Krkonoše in the Czech Republic.
In the west, the Sudetes border with the Elbe Sandstone Mountains. The westernmost point of the Sudetes lies in the Dresden Heath (Dresdner Heide), the westernmost part of the West Lusatian Hill Country and Uplands, in Dresden.
The Sudeten Germans (the German-speaking inhabitants of Czechoslovakia) as well as the Sudetenland (the border regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia they inhabited) are named after the Sudetes.
Etymology The name Sudetes is derived from Sudeti montes, a Latinization of the name Soudeta ore used in the Geographia by the Greco-Roman writer Ptolemy (Book 2, Chapter 10) for a range of mountains in Germania in the general region of the modern Czech Republic.
There is no consensus about which mountains he meant, and he could for example have intended the Ore Mountains, joining the modern Sudetes to their west, or even (according to Schütte) the Bohemian Forest (although this is normally considered to be equivalent to Ptolemy's Gabreta forest). The modern Sudetes are probably Ptolemy's Askiburgion mountains. It has also been proposed that Ptolemy's Askiburgion and Sudeti are the same mountains, with one being measured from the north, and one from the south.
Ptolemy wrote "Σούδητα" in Greek, which is a neuter plural. Latin mons, however, is a masculine, hence Sudeti. The Latin version, and the modern geographical identification, is likely to be a scholastic innovation, as it is not attested in classical Latin literature. The meaning of the name is not known. In one hypothetical derivation, it means Mountains of Wild Boars, relying on Indo-European *su-, "pig". A better etymology perhaps is from Latin sudis, plural sudes, "spines", which can be used of spiny fish or spiny terrain.
Subdivisions
The Sudetes are usually divided into the following mesoregions:
Macroregion Name Native name Highest peak HeightWestern Sudetes West Lusatian Foothills Westlausitzer Hügel- und Bergland (DE) Hochstein Lusatian Gefilde Oberlausitzer Gefilde (DE) Valtenberg Eastern Upper Lusatia Östliche Oberlausitz (DE)Pogórze Wschodniołużyckie (PL)Žitavská pánev (CZ) Prosečský hřeben Lusatian Highlands Šluknovská pahorkatina (CZ)Lausitzer Bergland (DE) Hrazený Lusatian Mountains Lužické hory (CZ)Lausitzer Gebirge (DE) Lausche Ještěd–Kozákov Ridge Ještědsko-kozákovský hřbet (CZ) Ještěd Jizera Foothills Pogórze Izerskie (PL)Frýdlantská pahorkatina (CZ) Andělský vrch Jizera Mountains Jizerské hory (CZ)Góry Izerskie (PL) Wysoka Kopa Kaczawskie Foothills Pogórze Kaczawskie (PL) Ostrzyca Kaczawskie Mountains Góry Kaczawskie (PL) Okole Jelenia Góra Valley Kotlina Jeleniogórska (PL) Krzywousty Rudawy Janowickie Rudawy Janowickie (PL) Skalnik Giant Mountains Krkonoše (CZ)Karkonosze (PL) Sněžka Giant Mountains Foothills Krkonošské podhůří (CZ) Hejlov Wałbrzych Highlands Pogórze Wałbrzyskie (PL) Sas Central Sudetes Wałbrzych Mountains Góry Wałbrzyskie (PL) Borowa Stone Mountains Góry Kamienne (PL) Waligóra Broumov Highlands Broumovská vrchovina (CZ) Královecký Špičák Owl Mountains Góry Sowie (PL) Wielka Sowa Nowa Ruda Depression Obniżenie Noworudzkie (PL) Włodzicka Góra Ścinawka Depression Obniżenie Ścinawki (PL) Gardzień Stołowe Mountains Góry Stołowe (PL)Stolové hory (CZ) Szczeliniec Wielki Bardzkie Mountains Góry Bardzkie (PL) Szeroka Góra Bystrzyckie Mountains Góry Bystrzyckie (PL)Bystřické hory (CZ) Jagodna Orlické Mountains Orlické hory (CZ)Góry Orlickie (PL) Velká Deštná Orlické Foothills Podorlická pahorkatina (CZ)Pogórze Orlickie (PL) Špičák Kłodzko Valley Kotlina Kłodzka (PL)Kladská kotlina (CZ) Wapniarka Sudeten Foreland Strzegom Hills Wzgórza Strzegomskie (PL) Góra Krzyżowa Sudeten Depression Obniżenie Podsudeckie (PL) Jabłoniec Świdnicka Plain Równina Świdnicka (PL) Popiel Ślęża Massif Masyw Ślęży (PL) Ślęża Niemczańsko-Strzelińskie Hills Wzgórza Niemczańsko-Strzelińskie (PL) Brzeźnica Otmuchów Depression Obniżenie Otmuchowskie (PL) Grzbietnik Vidnava Lowland Vidnavská nížina (CZ)Przedgórze Paczkowskie (PL) contour line Žulová Hilly Land Žulovská pahorkatina (CZ) Boží hora Eastern Sudetes Golden Mountains Rychlebské hory (CZ)Góry Złote (PL) Smrk Králický Sněžník Mountains Masyw Śnieżnika (PL)Králický Sněžník (CZ) Králický Sněžník Opawskie Mountains Zlatohorská vrchovina (CZ)Góry Opawskie (PL) Příčný vrch Hrubý Jeseník Hrubý Jeseník (CZ) Praděd Hanušovice Highlands Hanušovická vrchovina (CZ) Jeřáb Mohelnice Depression Mohelnická brázda (CZ) Homůlka Zábřeh Highlands Zábřežská vrchovina (CZ) Lázek Nízký Jeseník Nízký Jeseník (CZ) Slunečná
High Sudetes (, , ) is together name for the ranges of Giant Mountains, Hrubý Jeseník and Králický Sněžník Mountains.
Climate
The highest mountains, those located along the Czech–Polish border have annual precipitations around . The Table Mountains, which reach in elevation, have precipitations ranging from at lower locations to in the upper parts, with July being the rainiest month. Snow cover at the Table Mountains typically last 70 to 95 days depending on altitude.
Vegetation Settlement, logging and clearance has left forest pockets in the foothills with dense and continuous forest being found in the upper parts of the mountains. Due to logging in the last centuries little remains of the broad-leaf trees like beech, sycamore, ash and littleleaf linden that were once common in the Sudetes. Instead Norway spruce was planted in their place in the early 19th century, in some places amounting to monocultures. To provide more space for spruce plantations various peatlands were drained in the 19th and 20th century. Some spruce plantations have suffered severe damage as the seeds used came from lowland specimens that were not adapted to mountain conditions. Silver fir grow naturally in the Sudetes being more widespread in past times, before clearance since the Late Middle Ages and subsequent industrial pollution reduced the stands.
Many arctic-alpine and alpine vascular plants have a disjunct distribution being notably absent from the central Sudetes despite suitable habitats. Possibly this is the result a warm period during the Holocene (last 10,000 years) which wiped out cold-adapted vascular plants in the medium-sized mountains of the central Sudetes where there was no higher ground that could serve as refugia. Besides altitude the distribution of some alpine plants is influenced by soil. This is the case of Aster alpinus that grows preferentially on calcareous ground. Other alpine plants such as Cardamine amara, Epilobium anagallidifolium, Luzula sudetica and Solidago virgaurea occur beyond their altitudinal zonation in very humid areas.
Peatlands are common in the mountains occurring on high plateaus or in valley bottoms. Fens occur at slopes.
Timber line The higher mountains of the Sudetes lie above the timber line which is made up of Norway spruce. Spruces in wind-exposed areas display features such as flag tree disposition of branches, tilted stems and elongated stem cross sections. Forest-free areas above the timber line have increased historically by deforestation yet lowering of the timber line by human activity is minimal. Areas above the timber line appear discontinuously as "islands" in the Sudetes. In the Giant Mountains the timber line lies at c. 1230 m a.s.l. while to the southeast in the Hrubý Jeseník mountains it lie at c. 1310 m a.s.l. Part of the Hrubý Jeseník mountains have been above the timber line for no less than 5000 years. Mountains rise considerably above the timber line, at most 400 m, a characteristic that sets the Sudetes apart from other Mittelgebirge of Central Europe.
Geology Geological research has been hampered by the multinational geography of the Sudetes with and the limitation of studies to state boundaries.
Bedrock
The igneous and metamorphic rocks of the Sudetes originated during the Variscan orogeny and its aftermath. The Sudetes are the northeasternmost accessible part of Variscan orogen as in the North European Plain the orogen is buried beneath sediments. Plate tectonic movements during the Variscan orogeny assembled together four major and two to three lesser tectonostratigraphic terranes. The assemblage of the terranes ought to have involved the closure of at least two ocean basins containing oceanic crust and marine sediments. This is reflected in the ophiolites, MORB-basalts, blueschists and eclogites that occur in-between terranes. Various terranes of the Sudetes are likely extensions of the Armorican terrane while other terranes may be the fringes of the ancient Baltica continent. One possibility for the amalgamation of terranes in the Sudetes is that the Góry Sowie-Kłodzko terrane collided with the Orlica-Śnieżnik terrane causing the closure of a small oceanic basin. This event led to obduction of the Central Sudetic ophiolite in the Devonian period. In the Early Carboniferous the joint Góry Sowie-Kłodzko-Orlica-Śnieżnik terrane collided with the Brunovistulian terrane. This last terrane was part of the Old Red Continent and could correspond either to Baltica or the eastern tip of the narrow Avalonia terrane. Also by the Early Carboniferous the Saxothuringian terrane collided with the Góry Sowie-Kłodzko-Orlica-Śnieżnik terrane closing the Rheic Ocean.
Once the main phase of deformation of the orogeny was over basins that had formed in-between metamorphic rock massifs were filled by sedimentary rock in the Devonian and Carboniferous periods. During and after sedimentation large granitic plutons intruded the crust. Viewed in a map today these plutons make up about 15% the Sudetes. Granites are of S-type. The granites and grantic-gneisses of Izera in the west Sudetes are disassociated from orogeny and thought to have formed during rifting along a passive continental margin. The Karkonosze Granite, also in the west Sudetes, have been dated to have formed c. 318 million years ago at the beginning of the Variscan orogeny. The Karkonosze Granite is intruded by somewhat younger lamprophyre dykes.