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Divisions of the Carpathians

Categorization of the Carpathian mountains system

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Below is a detailed overview of the major subdivisions and ranges of the Carpathian Mountains. The Carpathians are a "subsystem" of a bigger Alps-Himalaya System that stretches from western Europe all the way to southern Asia, and are further divided into "provinces" and "subprovinces". The last level of the division, i.e. the actual mountain ranges and basins, is usually classified as "units". The main divisions are shown in the map on the right.

To generalize, there are three major provinces (regions): Western Carpathians, Eastern Carpathians, and the Southern Carpathians.

Naming conventions

The division is largely (with many exceptions) undisputed at the lowest level (except for the Ukrainian part), but various divisions are given for the higher levels, especially for the penultimate level. A geomorphological division has been used as much as the data was available; other new physiogeographic divisions were used in other cases. Where the classification of a higher level "title" is known/sure, it is added at the end of the name in brackets, e.g. "(subprovince)".

Taxonomy

The names are also given in the language of the corresponding country and marked by the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes:

The most confusing and diverse is the classification of the Beskids, including the Western Beskids, the Central Beskids and the Eastern Beskids. Their geologic features are fairly distinct, but multiple traditions, languages, and nationalities have developed overlapping variants for the divisions and names of these ranges.

In Romania, it is usual to divide the Eastern Carpathians in Romanian territory into three formal groups (northern, central, southern), instead in Outer and Inner sections of Eastern Carpathians. The Romanian approach is shown by adding the following abbreviations to the names of units within Romania:

  • MMB = Maramureș-Bukovinian Carpathians (Munții Carpați ai Maramureșului și Bucovinei)
  • MMT = Moldavian-Transylvanian Carpathians (Munții Carpați Moldo-Transilvani)
  • MC = Curvature Carpathians (Munții Carpați de Curbură)

A similar standard (grouping of outer and inner sections) is traditionally applied within broader use of the term "Wooded Carpathians", that encompasses all mountain ranges within the central section of Outer Eastern Carpathians, including Eastern Beskids with Polonynian Mountains, and also all mountains within the northern section of Inner Eastern Carpathians, including Vihorlat-Gutin Area and Maramureș-Rodna Area.

The Transylvanian Plateau is encircled by, and geologically a part of, the Carpathians. But it is not a mountainous region and its inclusion is disputed in some sources. Its features are included below.

The Serbian Carpathians are sometimes considered part of the Southern Carpathians (together with the Banat Mountains), sometimes not considered part of the Carpathians at all. They're included below.

The regions of Outer Subcarpathia lay outside the broad arc of the entire formation and are usually listed as part of the individual divisions of the Carpathian Mountains, i.e. of Western Carpathians, Eastern Carpathians, etc. With the difficulty of finding their exact subdivisions, they are given only as a list of the final units (mountains etc.) from the west to the east and south, in a separate listing at the end.

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