Sudetes

Sudetes
Śnieżne Kotły in the Karkonosze National Park
Highest point
Peak	Sněžka/Śnieżka
Elevation	1,603 m (5,259 ft)
Coordinates	50°44′10″N 15°44′24″E / 50.73611°N 15.74000°E / 50.73611; 15.74000
Dimensions
Length	300 km (190 mi)
Naming
Native name	Krkonošsko-jesenická subprovincie (Czech) Sudeten (German) Sudety (Polish) Sudety (Upper Sorbian)
Geography
Divisions of the Sudetes
Countries	Czech Republic Poland Germany
Regions/Voivodeships	Ústí nad Labem Liberec Hradec Králové Pardubice Olomouc Moravian-Silesian Lower Silesian Opole Saxony
Range coordinates	50°30′N 16°00′E / 50.5°N 16°E / 50.5; 16
Geology
Orogenies	Variscan orogeny (assembly) Alpine orogeny (uplift)

The Sudetes (/suːˈdiːtiːz/ soo-DEE-teez), 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 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 Moravian Gate in the Czech Republic in the east. Geographically the Sudetes are a Mittelgebirge with some characteristics typical of high mountains.^[1] Its plateaus and subtle summit relief makes the Sudetes more akin to mountains of Northern Europe than to the Alps.^[1]

In the east of the Sudetes, the Moravian Gate and Ostrava Basin separates from the Carpathian Mountains. The Sudetes' highest mountain is Mount Sněžka/Śnieżka 1,603 m (5,259 ft), which is also the highest mountain of the Czech Republic, Bohemia, Silesia, and Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in the Giant Mountains, lying on the border between the Czech Republic and Poland. Mount 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 Mount Smrk/Smrek 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 Mount Lausche/Luž (793 m/2,600 ft) in the Zittau Mountains, the highest part of the Lusatian Mountains. The most notable rivers rising in the Sudetes are Elbe, Oder, Spree, Morava, Bóbr, Lusatian Neisse, Eastern Neisse, Jizera and Kwisa. The highest parts of the Sudetes are protected by national parks;^[2] Karkonosze and Stołowe (Table) 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.