EUROPEAN RUSSIA AND THE CAUCASIAN STATES

ULTRA-PROMINENCE PAGE

12 Peaks with Prominence of 1,500 meters or greater

List compiled 2004 by Jonathan de Ferranti and Aaron Maizlish

This list includes two sets of mountains that at first glance would seem to have little in common.  These are the ten ultra-prominences of the  Caucasus (all peaks in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and the Russian Caucasus), and two summits in other ranges that one may associate with European Russia.  The lists are presented separately below.

The following is meant to complement the main lists of the European prominences, which are linked respectively from the lists and maps page.

The notion of Europe as a geographic entity is problematic from a prominence standpoint.  Europe and Asia of course form one continuous landmass.  Other continents that connect by land (South America to North America and Africa to Asia) are traditionally demarcated at a natural low saddle; i.e. at the point where the continents would separate were the ocean to rise just a little bit.   Geographers however have historically divided Europe and Asia along its natural mountain ranges and not its lowest points.  The Europe/Asia boundary traditionally extends south from the Arctic Ocean along the crest of the Ural Mountains, down the middle of the Ural River into the Caspian Sea, thence along the high ridge of the Caucasus into the Black Sea, through the Bosporus and into the Mediterranean.  Precise demarcation of this imaginary physical boundary is a bit fuzzy, and the author does not know whether any attempt has ever been made to precisely survey the boundary. 

From the standpoint of topographic prominence, the division between Europe and Asia is much easier to grasp.  The great ranges of central Europe combine to form a region of continuous upland.  Mont Blanc (E=4,808m, P=4,701m) is the high point of this natural group.  The ridge that connects Mont Blanc to the next higher mountains (in the Greater Ranges of Central Asia) has its lowest point in Northern Russia, where a major canal connects the Volga to the Baltic Sea and the White Sea.  Thus the Volga most naturally separates (or shall we say orometrically separates) the European Ranges from the Asian Ranges.  Mountains to the West of the Volga include Mont Blanc in their lineage, mountains to the east of the Volga connect directly to the Greater Ranges of Central Asia.

European Russia has just two ultra-prominences on the far side of the Volga (outside of the Caucasus).  One is Gora Narodnaya (E=1,894m), the high point of the Urals which defines the continental boundary.  The other is the unnamed highpoint of Novaya Zemlya, an Arctic Ocean island that is the natural extension of the Urals.   There is one ultra-prominence in the Ukraine, which naturally belongs to the European group.

The Caucasus really are the high front range of a great continuous system of ranges that extend across Asia.  Whether they lie in Europe or in Asia is beside the point.  Historically, Elbrus and the other peaks that lie entirely on the north side of the central ridge might be considered European, and peaks to the south of the Central spine are Asian.  But to divide them by this fact seems pointless:  the eight summits of the Greater Caucasus and the two summits (Aragats and Kapudzhukh Lerr) in Armenia and Azerbaijan to the south of the Caucasus, are here presented together.

Elbrus is the tenth most prominent point on earth.  Its lineage area (the grouping of subsidiary peaks) are the ranges of Anatolia, Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.  Mont Blanc is the eleventh most prominent point on earth.  Whichever you regard to be the rightful highpoint of Europe is a matter of personal choice.

minor correction: March 26, 2011