Sudeten mountains
The
Sudeten mountains (in
German;
pronounced: ) also called the Sudetes () or
Sudety (pronounced in
Czech, in
Polish), are a
mountain range in
Central Europe. They stretch from eastern
Germany to
Poland and the
Czech Republic. The highest mountain is
Sněžka-Śnieżka () in the
Krkonoše/Karkonosze Mountains () on the Czech-Polish border. They reach up to 1,602 metres in altitude. The Sudeten are divided into# Western Sudeten#*
Lusatian Mountains (Germany and Czech Republic) #*
Ještěd-Kozákov Ridge (Czech Republic) #*
Jizera Mountains (Poland and Czech Republic)#*
Karkonosze/Krkonoše/Giant Mountains (Poland and Czech Republic)# Central Sudeten# Eastern Sudeten
The Krkonoše Mountains have experienced growing tourism for winter sports during the past ten years. Its skiing resorts have been becoming an alternative to the
Alps.
Notable towns in this area include:
*
Zittau (Germany)
*
Karpacz (Poland)
*
Szklarska Poręba (Poland)
*
Špindlerův Mlýn (Czech Republic)
*
Harrachov (Czech Republic)
The name
Sudeten has been derived from
Sudeti montes, a Latinization of the name
Soudeta ore used in the Geography of
Ptolemaios (Book 2 Chapter 10) ca. 150 for the present-day northern Czech mountains. Ptolemy said that they were above the
Gabreta Forest, which places them in the Sudetenland. Ptolemy wrote in Greek, in which the name is a neuter plural. Latin mons, however, is a masculine, hence Sudeti. The Latin version 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.
The exact location of the Sudeten is not very clear, as it has varied over the centuries. For example, the name was used before
World War II to describe the
German province of
Sudetenland. The
ethnic Germans living there were called
Sudeten Germans. They were heavily clustered, especially at the borders of
Bohemia to German
Silesia and
Saxony. These were the descendants of Medieval German colonists invited by the Kings of Bohemia into these originally Slavic areas for agricultural cultivation.
Adolf Hitler erroneously redefined the term to mean the entire mountainous periphery of
Czechoslovakia, and under that pretext, got his future enemies to concede the Czech defensive border in the
Munich Agreement, leaving the remainder of Czechoslovakia helpless. The Germans soon overran Czechoslovakia by March, 1939.
The ancient Sudetenland certainly did not have that meaning. It meant at least the northwest frontier of today's Czech Republic, probably extending to the north. By implication, it was part of the
Hercynian Forest mentioned by many ancient authors of
Antiquity.
*
Orographic map with Sudeten mountains highlighted 
