The Salzburg Slate Alps () 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 ...

of the

Eastern Alps The Eastern Alps are usually defined as the area east of a line from Lake Constance and the Alpine Rhine valley, up to the Splügen Pass at the Main chain of the Alps, Alpine divide, and down the Liro (Como), Liro River to Lake Como in the south. ...

, in the

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n state of

Salzburg Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...

. Situated within the

greywacke zone The greywacke zone is a band of Paleozoic metamorphosed sedimentary rocks that forms an east-west band through the Austrian Alps. The greywacke zone crops out between the Mesozoic rocks of the Northern Calcareous Alps and the Austroalpine and P ...

, they could be regarded either as part of the

Northern Limestone Alps The Northern Limestone Alps (), also called the Northern Calcareous Alps, are the ranges of the Eastern Alps north of the Central Eastern Alps located in Austria and the adjacent Bavarian lands of southeastern Germany. The distinction from the ...

or of the

Central Eastern Alps The Central Eastern Alps (), also referred to as Austrian Central Alps () or just Central Alps, comprise the main chain of the Eastern Alps in Austria and the adjacent regions of Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy and Slovenia. South of them is ...

Geography

The range is located between the

Kitzbühel Alps The Kitzbühel Alps ( or ''Kitzbühler Alpen'') are a mountain range of the Central Eastern Alps surrounding the town of Kitzbühel in Tyrol, Austria. Geologically they are part of the western slate zone ( greywacke zone). Location Two-thirds of ...

(Tyrolean Slate Alps), the continuation of the greywacke zone beyond

Lake Zell Lake Zell (; ) is a small freshwater lake in the Austrian Alps. It takes its name from the city of Zell am See, which is located on a small delta protruding into the lake. The lake is long and across at its widest. It is up to 73 metres deep ...

and

Saalach The Saalach is a river in Austria and Germany, and a left tributary of the Salzach. Course The river begins, as the stream, in the Austrian state of Tyrol in the Kitzbühel Alps at the lake below the high Gamshag. From there it flows ini ...

river in the west, and the

Dachstein Hoher Dachstein () is a strongly karstic mountain in central Austria and the second-highest mountain in the Northern Limestone Alps. It is situated at the border of Upper Austria and Styria, and is the highest point in each of those states. Par ...

massif in the east. In the north it is adjacent to the

Berchtesgaden Alps The Berchtesgaden Alps (, ) are a mountain range of the Northern Limestone Alps, named after the market town of Berchtesgaden located in the centre. It is crossed by the Austria–Germany border: the central part belongs to the Berchtesgadener Lan ...

, while in the south the

Salzach The Salzach (Austrian: �saltsax ) is a river in Austria and Germany. It is in length and is a right tributary of the Inn (river), Inn, which eventually joins the Danube. Its drainage basin of comprises large parts of the Northern Limeston ...

and Enns valleys separates it from the

High High may refer to: Science and technology * Height * High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area * High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory * High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift t ...

and

Low Tauern The Lower TauernThe New Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. 1, 2003, p. 86. or Niedere Tauern are a mountain range of the Central Eastern Alps, in the Austrian states of Salzburg and Styria. For the etymology of the name, see Tauern. Geography The ...

ranges of the Alpine crest. The Salzburg Slate Alps stretch about in west–east direction, from the Salzburg

Pinzgau The Bezirk Zell am See is an administrative district (''Bezirk'') in the federal state of Salzburg, Austria, and congruent with the Pinzgau region (). The area of the district is , with a population of 84,124 (May 15, 2001), and population dens ...

region, north of the Salzach, into the

Pongau The Bezirk St. Johann im Pongau is an administrative district (''Bezirk'') in the federal state of Salzburg (state), Salzburg, Austria, and congruent with the Pongau region. Area of the district is 1,755.37 km2, with a population of 77,872 ...

region and along the Enns river up to the border with

Styria Styria ( ; ; ; ) is an Austrian Federal states of Austria, state in the southeast of the country. With an area of approximately , Styria is Austria's second largest state, after Lower Austria. It is bordered to the south by Slovenia, and cloc ...

. This inner-Alpine ''

Mittelgebirge A ''Mittelgebirge'' (; German: ''Mittel'', "middle or mid"; ''Gebirge'', "mountains or mountainous area") is a type of relatively low mountain range or highland area typical of the geography of central Europe, especially central and southern Germ ...

'' group, designated by the

Alpine Club Classification of the Eastern Alps The Alpine Club classification of the Eastern Alps (, AVE) is a common division of the Eastern Alps into 75 mountain ranges, based on the Moriggl Classification (ME) first published in 1924 by the German and Austrian Alpine Club. The present-day di ...

(AVE) based on its underlying rock, cannot be assigned from a geological perspective either to the Northern or the Central Alps, so it does not fit into the general tripartite division of the Eastern Alps and, as a result, is variously treated in the literature.

Subdivisions

From a topographic perspective there are two subgroups, separated by the Salzach river where it bends northwards near

St Johann im Pongau St. Johann im Pongau (''Saiga Håns'' or ''Sainig Håns'' in the local Pongau dialect, abbreviated St.Johann/Pg.) is a city in the state of Salzburg, Austria. It is the administrative centre of the St. Johann im Pongau District. Geography The ...

: * the Dienten Mountains (''Dientener Berge''), which are known in the region as slate mountains in the true sense, running from west of the Salzach to Lake Zell and including the

Hundstein The Hundstein is a mountain in the Alpstein massif of the Appenzell Alps, located south of Schwende in the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden Canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden ( ; ; ; ), in English sometimes Appenzell Inner-Rhodes, is one of the 2 ...

massif () and the Schneeberg-Hochglockner Group (''Schneeberg-Hochglockner-Gruppe'', (Schneebergkreuz ) * the Fritztal Mountains (''Fritztaler Berge''), running from east of the Salzach to the Styrian border and the Dachstein massif, including the: **''Hochgründeck'' () in the triangle formed by Bischofshofen, St. Johann and Altenmarkt; **'' Rossbrand'' (), which runs from Altenmarkt to the Mandling Pass near Radstadt; **''Glutserberg'', ''Halserberg'' and the ''Ramsauerleiten'', three smaller regions that continue the Rossbrand to

Schladming Schladming () is a small former mining town in the northwest of the Austrian state of Styria that is now a popular tourist destination. It has become a large winter-sports resort and has held various skiing competitions, including most notably th ...

; **'' Gerzkopf'' (), north of the Fritztal valley, which geologically belongs to the limestone region between the

Tennen Mountains The Tennen Mountains () is a small, but rugged, mountain range in the Northern Limestone Alps, which lies in front of the Eastern Alps for its entire length. It is a very heavily karstified high plateau, about 60 km² in area, with many ca ...

and the

, and are morphologically less related to the Dachstein massif and more to its southwestern outlier

External links

* {{Authority control Mountains of Salzburg (federal state) Greywacke zone