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The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe (after the Scandinavian Mountains, ). They provide the habitat for the largest European populations of brown bears, wolves, chamois and lynxes, with the highest concentration in Romania, as well as over one third of all European plant species.〔 〕 The Carpathians and their foothills also have many thermal and mineral waters, with Romania having one-third of the European total.〔(Bucureşti, staţiune balneară – o glumă bună? ) in Capital, 19 January 2009. Retrieved: 26 April 2011〕〔(Ruinele de la Baile Herculane si Borsec nu mai au nimic de oferit ) in Ziarul Financiar, 5 May 2010. Retrieved: 26 April 2011〕 Romania is likewise home to the largest surface of virgin forests in Europe (excluding Russia), totaling 250,000 hectares (65%), most of them in the Carpathians,〔(Salvaţi pădurile virgine! ) in Jurnalul Național, 26 October 2011. Retrieved: 31 October 2011〕 with the Southern Carpathians constituting Europe’s largest unfragmented forested area.〔(Europe: New Move to Protect Virgin Forests ) in Global Issues, 30 May 2011. Retrieved 31 October 2011.〕 The Carpathians consist of a chain of mountain ranges that stretch in an arc from the Czech Republic (3%) in the northwest through Slovakia (17%), Poland (10%), Hungary (4%) and Ukraine (11%) to Romania (53%) in the east and on to the Iron Gates on the River Danube between Romania and Serbia (2%) in the south. The highest range within the Carpathians is the Tatras, on the border of Slovakia and Poland, where the highest peaks exceed . The second-highest range is the Southern Carpathians in Romania, where the highest peaks exceed . The Carpathians are usually divided into three major parts: the Western Carpathians (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia), the Eastern Carpathians (southeastern Poland, eastern Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania), and the Southern Carpathians (Romania, Serbia).〔 The most important cities in or near the Carpathians are: Bratislava and Košice in Slovakia; Kraków in Poland; Cluj-Napoca, Sibiu and Braşov in Romania; and Miskolc in Hungary. ==Name== In modern times, the range is called ''Karpaty'' in Czech, Polish, Slovak and ''Карпати'' in Ukrainian, ''Carpați'' in Romanian, ''Karpaten'' in German and Dutch, ''Kárpátok'' in Hungarian, ''Karpati'' in Serbian and ''Карпати'' in Bulgarian. Although the toponym was recorded already by Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD, the modern form of the name is a neologism in most languages. For instance, ''Havasok'' ("Snowy Mountains") was its medieval Hungarian name; Rus' and Romanian chronicles referred to it as "Hungarian Mountains". Other sources, such as Dimitrie Cantemir and the Italian chronicler Giovanandrea Gromo, referred to the range as "Transylvania's Mountains", while the 17th century historian Constantin Cantacuzino translated the name of the mountains in an Italian-Romanian glossary to "Rumanian Mountains". The name ''Carpates'' may ultimately be from the Proto Indo-European root '' *sker-''/'' *ker-'', from which comes the Albanian word ''karpë'' (rock), and the Slavic word skála (rock, cliff), perhaps via a Dacian cognate which meant ''mountain,'' ''rock'', or ''rugged'' (cf. Germanic root '' *skerp-'', Old Norse ''harfr'' "harrow", Middle Low German ''scharf'' "potsherd" and Modern High German ''Scherbe'' "shard", Old English ''scearp'' and English ''sharp'', Lithuanian ''kar~pas'' "cut, hack, notch", Latvian ''cìrpt'' "to shear, clip"). The archaic Polish word ''karpa'' meant "rugged irregularities, underwater obstacles/rocks, rugged roots or trunks". The more common word ''skarpa'' means a sharp cliff or other vertical terrain. The name may instead come from Indo-European *''kwerp'' "to turn", akin to Old English ''hweorfan'' "to turn, change" (English ''warp'') and Greek καρπός ''karpós'' "wrist", perhaps referring to the way the mountain range bends or veers in an L-shape.〔Room, Adrian. ''Placenames of the World''. London: MacFarland and Co., Inc., 1997.〕 In late Roman documents, the Eastern Carpathian Mountains were referred to as ''Montes Sarmatici'' (meaning ''Sarmatian Mountains''). The Western Carpathians were called ''Carpates'', a name that is first recorded in Ptolemy's ''Geographia'' (2nd century AD). In the Scandinavian ''Hervarar saga'', which relates ancient Germanic legends about battles between Goths and Huns, the name ''Karpates'' appears in the predictable Germanic form as ''Harvaða fjöllum'' (see Grimm's law). "''Inter Alpes Huniae et Oceanum est Polonia''" by Gervase of Tilbury, has described in his Otia Imperialia ("Recreation for an Emperor") in 1211. Thirteenth to 15th century Hungarian documents named the mountains ''Thorchal'', ''Tarczal'' or less frequently ''Montes Nivium''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Carpathian Mountains」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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