The Geopark Karawanken/Karavanke is located in the

Karawanks The Karawanks or Karavankas or Karavanks (; , ) are a mountain range of the Southern Limestone Alps on the border between Slovenia to the south and Austria to the north. With a total length of in an east–west direction, the Karawanks chain is o ...

mountain range in

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 ...

and in

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

and comprises an area of 1067 km². The crossborder geopark has numerous

geological Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth s ...

and other natural sights and became a member of the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

Global Geoparks Network UNESCO Global Geoparks (UGGp) are geoparks certified by the UNESCO Global Geoparks Council as meeting all the requirements for belonging to the Global Geoparks Network (GGN). The GGN is both a network of geoparks and the agency of the United Nati ...

in 2013.

Geography and geology

On both sides of the border there are in total 14 participating municipalities, namely

Bad Eisenkappel Bad Eisenkappel, also known as Eisenkappel (), is a municipality located in the Vellach Valley in the Karawanken mountain range with the nearby peaks: Obir, Peca (mountain), Peca, and Olševa. It is the population center of the market township o ...

Bleiburg Bleiburg () is a small town in the south Austrian state of Carinthia (''Koroška''), south-east of Klagenfurt, in the district of Völkermarkt, some four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the border with Slovenia. The municipality consists of the twel ...

Črna na Koroškem Črna na Koroškem (; ) is a town in northern Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Črna na Koroškem. It lies in the traditional Slovenian province of Carinthia, close to the border with Austria. Since 2005 it has been part of the lar ...

Dravograd Dravograd (; ) is a small town in northern Slovenia, close to the border with Austria. It is the seat of the Municipality of Dravograd. It lies on the Drava River at the confluence with the Meža and the Mislinja. It is part of the traditional ...

, Feistritz ob Bleiburg,

Gallizien Gallizien (; ) is a town in the district of Völkermarkt (district), Völkermarkt in the Austrian state of Carinthia (state), Carinthia. Geography Gallizien lies in southern Carinthia on the boundary between the Rosen and Jaun Valley, Jaun valle ...

Globasnitz Globasnitz ( Slovene: ''Globasnica'') is a town in the district of Völkermarkt in the Austrian state of Carinthia. Population A considerable percentage (42.1%) of the population are Carinthian Slovenes, and Slovene is a second official language ...

Lavamünd Lavamünd () is a market town in the district of Wolfsberg (district), Wolfsberg in the Austrian state of Carinthia (state), Carinthia. The Drava#Hydroelectric power plants, Lavamünd hydroelectric power plant on the Drava River and the Soboth res ...

Mežica Mežica (; German: ''Mießdorf'') is a town in northern Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Mežica. It lies on the Meža River in the traditional Slovenian province of Carinthia) near the Austrian border. The town developed close to ...

, Neuhaus,

Prevalje Prevalje (; German language, German: ''Prävali'') is a town in northern Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Prevalje. It lies in the traditional Slovenian province of Carinthia, Slovenia, Carinthia. Prevalje lies in a valley where th ...

Ravne na Koroškem Ravne na Koroškem (; until 1952: ''Guštanj''; ) is a town in northern Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Ravne na Koroškem, and the largest town and the capital of Slovenia's Carinthia region. The town has a long tradition in the ...

Sittersdorf Sittersdorf () is a town in the district of Völkermarkt in Carinthia in south-central Austria. Geography Sittersdorf lies about 10 km as the crow flies from the Slovenian border. The Vellach and the Suchabach flow through it. The largest bodies ...

and

Zell Zell may refer to: Places Austria * Zell am See, in Salzburg state * Zell am Ziller, in Tyrol * Zell, Carinthia, in Carinthia * in Upper Austria: ** Bad Zell ** Zell am Moos ** Zell an der Pram ** Zell am Pettenfirst Germany * Zell im Fich ...

. The highest mountain peaks in the geopark are Obir, Petzen and Koschuta. The special geological situation with exceptionally deep valleys results from the contact of several

tectonic plates Plate tectonics (, ) is the scientific theory that the Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of , an idea developed durin ...

at the

Periadriatic Seam The Periadriatic Seam (or fault) is a distinct geologic fault in Southern Europe, running ''S-shaped'' about from the Tyrrhenian Sea through the whole Southern Alps as far as Hungary. It forms the division between the Adriatic plate and the Eur ...

. The area has a rich

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

zinc Zinc is a chemical element; it has symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodic tabl ...

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

and

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

tradition. During the construction of a tunnel, the Obir dripstone caves were discovered. Trögern creek makes its way through an impressive

gorge A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tend ...

near Bad Eisenkappel. A frequently-visited source of iron-rich water is the

Muri Spring Muri Spring (, ) is a chalybeate mineral spring on the Austrian side of the Austria-Slovenia border, on the slope of a hill named Goli Vrh. The spring is next to the main road leading from Seeberg Saddle, Jezersko towards the village of Bad ...

. The mineral

wulfenite Wulfenite is a lead molybdate mineral with the formula Pb Mo O4. It often occurs as thin tabular crystals with a bright orange-red to yellow-orange color, sometimes brown, although the color can be highly variable. In its yellow form it is some ...

can be found in the former mine in Mežica that is now used for

touristic Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as being limited to holiday activity onl ...

purposes. In Bad Eisenkappel and in Mežica geopark informations centers have been set up.

Politics

The geopark is an ecotouristic project with an additional aspect of international understanding. The idea goes back to botanist and conservationist Angela Piskernik, who intended to create a transboundary

nature park A nature park, or sometimes natural park, is a designation for a protected area by means of long-term land planning, sustainable resource management and limitation of agricultural and real estate developments. These valuable landscapes are pres ...

in this region already in the 1960s.Carolin Firouzeh Roeder (2012), ''Slovenia's Triglav National Park: From Imperial Borderland to National Ethnoscape'', in: Bernhard Gissibl, Sabine Höhler, Patrick Kupper (Eds.), ''Civilizing Nature: National Parks in Global Historical Perspective'', Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford, , p. 250.

References

External links

* {{official site, url=https://www.geopark-karawanken.at/en/home.html , name=Geopark Karawanken/Karavanke Global Geoparks Network members Geoparks in Europe Karawanks Protected areas of Austria Protected areas of Slovenia