The Geopark Karawanken/Karavanke is located in the

Karawanks The Karawanks or Karavankas or Karavanks ( sl, Karavanke; german: Karawanken, ) are a mountain range of the Southern Limestone Alps on the border between Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: ...

mountain range in

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

and in

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

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

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

and other natural sights and became a member of the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

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, ( sl, Železna Kapla) is a municipality located in the Vellach Valley in the Karawanken mountain range with the nearby peaks: Obir, Peca, and Olševa. It is the population center of the market townsh ...

Bleiburg Bleiburg ( sl, Pliberk) 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 o ...

Črna na Koroškem Črna na Koroškem (; german: Schwarzenbach) 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 ...

Dravograd Dravograd (; german: Unterdrauburg) 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 ...

Feistritz ob Bleiburg Feistritz ob Bleiburg ( sl, Bistrica pri Pliberku) is a town in the district of Völkermarkt in the Austrian state of Carinthia. History In the Carinthian Plebiscite of 1920, Sankt Jakob was one of the 17 Carinthian municipalities, where the majo ...

Gallizien Gallizien (; sl, Galicija) is a town in the district of Völkermarkt in the Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It i ...

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 ( sl, Labot) is a market town in the district of Wolfsberg in the Austrian state of Carinthia. The Lavamünd hydroelectric power plant on the Drava River and the Koralpe power plant are located in or near Lavamünd. Geography Lavam� ...

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: ''Prävali'') is a settlement in northern Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Prevalje. It lies in the traditional Slovenian province of Carinthia. Prevalje lies in a valley where the Meža River emerges from a na ...

Ravne na Koroškem Ravne na Koroškem (; until 1952: ''Guštanj''; german: Gutenstein in Kärnten) 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 tow ...

Sittersdorf Sittersdorf ( sl, Žitara vas) 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 ...

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 Fichtelgebi ...

. 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 (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large te ...

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 Euro ...

. The area has a rich

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc 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 periodi ...

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) 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, right in f ...

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 elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

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

gorge A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, 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 tenden ...

near Bad Eisenkappel. The mineral

wulfenite Wulfenite is a lead molybdate mineral with the formula Pb Mo O4. It can be most often found 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 ...

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

touristic Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mor ...

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

Politics

The geopark is an

ecotouristic Ecotourism is a form of tourism involving responsible travel (using sustainable transport) to natural areas, conserving the environment, and improving the well-being of the local people. Its purpose may be to educate the traveler, to provide funds ...

project with an additional aspect of international understanding. The idea goes back to botanist and conservationist

Angela Piskernik Angela Piskernik (27 August 1886 – 23 December 1967) was an Austro-Yugoslav botanist and conservationist. Biography Piskernik was born in Bad Eisenkappel in Southern Carinthia, which remained with Austria after the First World War, and held ...

, who intended to create a transboundary

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

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.

Weblinks

Geopark Karawanken/Karavanke

References

{{reflist Global Geoparks Network members Geoparks in Europe Karawanks