Orava Highlands

The Orava Highlands (in Slovak, ''Oravská vrchovina'') is a range of small mountains in the

Žilina Region The Žilina Region ( sk, Žilinský kraj; pl, Kraj żyliński; hu, Zsolnai kerület) is one of the eight Slovak administrative regions and consists of 11 districts ( okresy) and 315 municipalities, from which 18 have a town status. The region ...

of north central Slovakia, part of the

Outer Western Carpathians Divisions of the Carpathians are a categorization of the Carpathian mountains system. Below is a detailed overview of the major subdivisions and ranges of the Carpathian Mountains. The Carpathians are a "subsystem" of a bigger Alps-Himalaya Sy ...

. In Slovakia these hills are considered part of the Central Beskids; in Poland they're considered

Western Beskids The Western Beskids ( cs, Západní Beskydy; sk, Západné Beskydy; pl, Beskidy Zachodnie; german: Westbeskiden) are a set of mountain ranges spanning the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland. Geologically the Western Beskids are part of the Ou ...

. The highlands stretch along both sides of the Orava River, and cover an area about 220 square kilometers. It consists of two smaller areas: the ''Podchočská brázda'' (the Podchočská furrow) and the ''Veličnianska kotlina'' (Veličnianska basin). The highest of the relatively modest summits are ''Kopec'' (1251 meters), ''Machy'' (1202 meters) and ''Mnich'' (1110 meters), the last of which towers over the ski resort town of Zuberec. Geologically the highlands are composed of Carpathian

flysch Flysch () is a sequence of sedimentary rock layers that progress from deep-water and turbidity flow deposits to shallow-water shales and sandstones. It is deposited when a deep basin forms rapidly on the continental side of a mountain building ep ...

and the limestone unique to the

Pieniny Klippen Belt The Pieniny Klippen Belt is in geology a tectonically and orographically remarkable zone in the Western Carpathians, with a very complex geological structure. It is a narrow (only 0.4 to 19 km) and extremely long (about 600 km) north ba ...

. Mountain ranges of Slovakia Mountain ranges of the Western Carpathians Highlands {{slovakia-geo-stub