The Aladagh Mountains or the Aladagh Range refers to a mountain range situated in the southeastern section of

North Khorasan North Khorasan Province ( fa, استان خراسان شمالی, ''Ostān-e Khorāsān-e Shomālī'') is a province located in northeastern Iran. Bojnord is the capital of the province. The counties of North Khorasan Province are Shirvan Cou ...

Province in the northeastern part of

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

southeast of the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central A ...

. The range is located almost 25 kilometres south of Bojnurd, the capital city of North Khorasan. The Aladagh Mountains merge with the Elburz or

Alborz The Alborz ( fa, البرز) range, also spelled as Alburz, Elburz or Elborz, is a mountain range in northern Iran that stretches from the border of Azerbaijan along the western and entire southern coast of the Caspian Sea and finally runs nort ...

Mountains in the west and then run southeastwards in a northwest-southeast direction. The highest peak of the range is

Mount Shahjahan With an elevation of 3032 metres, Mount Shahjahan (Kuh-e Shahjahan) is the highest point in the Aladagh Mountains and North Khorasan Province in the northeastern part of Iran. This peak is located in the southeastern part of the Aladagh Range. The ...

with an elevation of 3032 metres. This peak is located about 35 kilometres east of

Esfarayen Esfarayen ( fa, اسفراین, also Romanized as Esfarāyen; formerly, Meyanābād, Mīānābād, and Mīyānābād) is a city and capital of Esfarayen County, North Khorasan Province in Iran. At the 2011 census its population was 60,372 perso ...

almost in southeastern part of North Khorasan Province.

Etymology

Linguistically, the word ''Aladagh'' comes from the Turkic branch of the Altaic language family (- and, more specifically, from the Khorasani Turkic language ) and consists of two parts, ''ala'' and ''dagh'' /''dag''. ''Ala'' means "variegated", "patchwork", "particoloured " or "speckled" and ''dagh'' means "mountain", and therefore the word ''Aladagh'' means "(the)

variegated Variegation is the appearance of differently coloured zones in the leaves and sometimes the stems and fruit of plants. Species with variegated individuals are sometimes found in the understory of tropical rainforests, and this habitat is the ...

or speckled mountain (range)". The concept of a 'speckled mountain' is also a very common one in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, where the epithet in question is ''breac'' (

Goidelic The Goidelic or Gaelic languages ( ga, teangacha Gaelacha; gd, cànanan Goidhealach; gv, çhengaghyn Gaelgagh) form one of the two groups of Insular Celtic languages, the other being the Brittonic languages. Goidelic languages historical ...

Celtic for 'speckled or 'spotted' (see also Barmbrack )) as in

the Brack The Brack is a mountain, located in the Arrochar Alps, on the south side of Glen Croe, near Loch Goil in Argyll and Bute in Scotland. The Brack has two summits: the lower peak, Cruach Fhiarach, can be seen from the shores of Loch Long, and the ...

and

Ben Vrackie Ben Vrackie (Scottish Gaelic: Beinn a' Bhreacaidh; sometimes anglicised as ''Ben Y Vrackie'') is a mountain in Perthshire, Scotland. It lies north of the town of Pitlochry and reaches 841 m (2759 feet) high at its summit. The summit ma ...

. This is hardly surprising, given the fact that combinations of varicoloured rocks, different types and densities of vegetation and cloud shadows often conspire to give mountains a

piebald A piebald or pied animal is one that has a pattern of unpigmented spots (white) on a pigmented background of hair, feathers or scales. Thus a piebald black and white dog is a black dog with white spots. The animal's skin under the white backgro ...

or speckled appearance, lending to their (already considerable) aesthetic appeal.

Geology

Geologically, the mountains were mainly uplifted in the Alpine orogeny during the

Neogene The Neogene ( ), informally Upper Tertiary or Late Tertiary, is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period Mya. ...

and especially in the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

, although the orogenic phase continued in the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...

rocks in the western, south-central, eastern and southeastern parts, with a smaller portion of

Paleozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ...

rocks in the north-central section.Geological Map of Iran, National Geoscience Database of Iran, www.ngdir.ir

Climatology

The Aladagh Mountain Range consists of high mountains situated far from the temperate mediterranean climate of the northwestern and western mountains of Iran. Aside from the highest section of the central Elburz that has a cold mountain climate, even the Elburz Mountain Range has a generally Mediterranean climate in the eastern, central, and Western parts. But the Aladagh Mountain Range has a generally cold mountain climate. So, this cold mountain climate is surrounded on all sides by the Mediterranean climate that is prevalent in the west in the eastern Elburz, and in southeastern part of the Aladagh Range in the

Binalud Mountains The Binalud Mountain Range or the Binalud Range ( fa, بینالود - ''Bīnālūd'') is a mountain range that runs in a northwest-southeast direction between the Nishapur and Mashhad regions in Razavi Khorasan Province in northeastern Iran, to ...

, and even in the northwestern, northern, and northeastern parts of the Aladagh in the Kopet-Dag Mountains.

References

{{coord missing, North Khorasan Province Mountain ranges of Iran Landforms of North Khorasan Province Iranian Plateau