The Kaczawskie Mountains or Katzbach Mountains (; ) are a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...

in the

Lower Silesian Voivodeship Lower Silesian Voivodeship (, ) in southwestern Poland, is one of the 16 Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeships (provinces) into which Poland is divided. It covers an area of and has a total population of 2,899,986. It is one of the wealthiest ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. It is roughly 30 kilometres long and belongs to the

Western Sudetes The Western Sudetes (; ; ) are a geomorphological macroregion, the western part of the Sudetes subprovince on the borders of the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany. Geography They are formed mostly by mountain ranges. They stretch from the Bóbr ...

. Its highest peak is the Skopiec (719 m). To the north of the Kaczawskie Mountains are the Kaczawskie Foothills (; ).

Location

The

ridge A ridge is a long, narrow, elevated geomorphologic landform, structural feature, or a combination of both separated from the surrounding terrain by steep sides. The sides of a ridge slope away from a narrow top, the crest or ridgecrest, wi ...

, which runs from northwest to southeast at heights between 400 and 700 metres, is a

fold mountain Fold mountains are formed by the effects of folding on layers within the upper part of the Earth's crust. Before the development of the theory of plate tectonics and before the internal architecture of thrust belts became well understood, the te ...

range consisting of

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

and dolomite. In the west the

Bóbr The Bóbr (; ; ) is a river which flows through the north of the Czech Republic and the southwest of Poland. It is a left tributary of the Oder. Its Polish name translates directly to ' beaver'. Course The Bóbr has a length of (3 in Czech ...

separates the range from the

Jizera Mountains Jizera Mountains (), or Izera Mountains (; ), are part of the Western Sudetes on the border between the Czech Republic and Poland. The range got its name from the Jizera (river), Jizera River, which rises at the southern base of the Smrk (Jizera), ...

and Jizera Foreland; to the north are the Katzbach Foothills; to the east the

Raging Neisse The Raging NeisseDodge, Lt Col Theodore Ayrault. ''Napoleon: A History of the Art of War. Vol. IV'', 2014 (, or ''Jauersche Neiße'') is a river in Poland. It has a length of about and flows into the Kaczawa (Katzbach), which in turn flows into ...

Nysa Szalona The Raging NeisseDodge, Lt Col Theodore Ayrault. ''Napoleon: A History of the Art of War. Vol. IV'', 2014 (, or ''Jauersche Neiße'') is a river in Poland. It has a length of about and flows into the Kaczawa (Katzbach), which in turn flows into ...

forms the boundary. In the southeast, the Katzbach Mountains merge into the

Waldenburg Mountains The Wałbrzyskie Mountains or Waldenburg Mountains (; ), sometimes called the Wałbrzyskie Highlands or Waldenburg Highlands, is one of the three mountain ranges that form the western part of the Central Sudetes. The other ranges are the Owl Moun ...

. To the south, the Landeshut Ridge /

Rudawy Janowickie The Rudawy Janowickie (; ) or Landeshut Ridge is a mountain range in the Sudetes in south-western Poland. History During World War II, Nazi Germany established and operated two subcamps of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp in the Rudawy Jano ...

and

Jelenia Góra Valley Jelenia Góra Valley (; ; ; Literally ''"Deer Mountain Valley"'') in Poland is a big valley at the Silesian northern side of the Western Sudetes and next to Kłodzko Valley the largest intermontane basin of the Sudetes. It is situated at an a ...

form the transition to the

Giant Mountains The Giant Mountains, Krkonoše, or Karkonosze (Czech: , , ), are a mountain range located in the north of the Czech Republic and the south-west of Poland, part of the Sudetes mountain system (part of the Bohemian Massif). The Czech–Polish bor ...

External links

---- Sudetes Mountain ranges of Poland {{LowerSilesian-geo-stub