Alps

Alps

The Alps are the highest mountain range in Europe and are also home to the highest mountain in Europe, Mont Blanc at 4810m.
The Alps have their southernmost point on the Apennines near Genoa, more precisely the pass of Altare, and at the same time find their southern limit there.
From there they then extend in a large arc to the north and west to Lake Geneva and from there further east to the Danube near Vienna.
In the north and south-east, the Alps then merge into other mountains. To the north-east they unite with the Carpathians and to the south-east with the Dinaric Mountains.
In the south, the Po Valley forms the border and in the east, the Hungarian lowlands.
To the west, the Alps extend with the Swiss Mittelland to Lake Geneva and the Jura.

If you now take these borders as a border, the Alps get a length of 1200km and a width of between 150-250km. In total, this results in an area of ??220,000 km2.
Due to their geographical location, the Alps are an important climatic divide, since there is a watershed between the Mediterranean Sea and the North Sea in the central part and between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea in the east.
Precisely because of their location, they are also represented in many countries. They share Germany, Slovenia, Italy, Austria, France, Lichtenstein and Switzerland.

Emergence

The nappe and fold mountains of the Alps were geologically unfolded when there was a collision between the Eurasian and African tectonic plates, which had shifted in a northerly direction.
The folded mountain body became high mountains when it began to rise and this continues to this day.
The form in which the Alps appear to us today was due to erosion, for which glaciers in the ice ages were mainly responsible.
It can be said with certainty that the Alps grow by 10-12 mm every year.