Zengő (; hr, Zenka) is the highest

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited Summit (topography), summit area, and ...

in Mecsek Mountains in southern

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

– its height is 682 metres.Pierre Jolivet, Jorge Santiago-Blay, Michael Schmitt, Research of chrysomelidae, BRILL, 2009 p. 23

/ref> The peak is situated in the southeastern part of the range. On its top, along with a look-out tower, the ruins of a small medieval castle are standing which was probably built on the site of an earlier

guard tower A guard tower is any military tower used for guarding an area. These towers are usually operated by military personnel, and are structures built in areas of established control. These include military bases and cities occupied by military forces. ...

of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

. The peak can be most easily reached from

Pécsvárad Pécsvárad (german: Petschwar; hr, Pečvar) is a town in Baranya County, Hungary. Notable landmarks Among the most significant Hungarian heritage from the Middle Ages is the castle built on a Benedictine monastery commissioned by King St Steph ...

Hosszúhetény Hosszúhetény (, german: Hetting, Heting, Langheting) is the most populous village in Baranya county, southwest Hungary, a significant centre of village tourism. It is located 18 kilometres northeast to Pécs, the county capital, in a valley betw ...

Name

Its name literally translates as ''"resonant"''. According to the local legend the noise heard from the mountain from time to time is caused by treasure hunters who entered the mountainside hundreds of years ago and could never come out again.

Radar plan

In 2005 the Hungarian government abandoned a plan to build a

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

radar on the peak after fierce resistance to the plan from locals and green groups who argued that the radar and the adjacent road construction would damage strictly protected species living on the mountains including the ''

Paeonia officinalis ''Paeonia officinalis'', the common peony, or garden peony, is a species of flowering plant in the family Paeoniaceae, native to mainly mountainous areas of Southern Europe and introduced in Central and Western Europe and North America. ''Paeon ...

ssp. Banatica''. Ninety percent of the total population of that rare

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

lives on the Zengő. Forcing the government to give up the plan was the most successful action of

environmentalist An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...

in Hungary for over a decade. The defenders of the Zengő included former Constitutional Court head

László Sólyom László Sólyom ( hu, Sólyom László, ; born 3 January 1942) is a Hungarian political figure, lawyer, and librarian who was President of Hungary from 2005 until 2010. Previously he was Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of Hungary f ...

who in 2005 was elected President of the Republic by parliament despite the ruling

Hungarian Socialist Party The Hungarian Socialist Party ( hu, Magyar Szocialista Párt), commonly known by its acronym MSZP, is a centre-left social-democratic and pro-European political party in Hungary. It was founded on 7 October, 1989 as a post-communist evolution a ...

's will. Sólyom often takes tours on the mountain.

References

Mountains of Hungary {{hungary-geo-stub

Name

Radar plan

See also

References