| Pannonian Biogeographic Region | |
|---|---|
 | |
 | |
| Ecology | |
| Realm | Palearctic |
| Geography | |
| Countries | Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Ukraine |
| Rivers | Danube, Tisza |
The Pannonian Biogeographic Region is a biogeographic region, as defined by the European Environment Agency. It covers the lowlands of the Pannonian Basin centered on Hungary.
The Pannonian Region is a large alluvial basin surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains to the north and east, the Alps to the west and the Dinaric Alps to the south. The basin was once the bed of an inland sea. It is flat, and is crossed from north to south by the Danube and Tisza rivers. The region contains all of Hungary, and around the periphery contains parts of Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ukraine. [1]
The region is sheltered by the mountains, but has complex weather caused by the interaction of wet winds from the west, drier winds from the south and cooler winds from the Carpathians and Alps, which sometimes results in severe storms. The basin was once largely forested, with many marshes and shallow lakes, but has long been cleared and drained to make way for grasslands and cultivation. It contains inland sand dunes, sand steppes, loess grasslands and maple-oak loess forests. [2] , and significantly overlaps with the Pannonian mixed forests ecoregion.
In geography, a plain, commonly known as flatland, is a flat expanse of land that generally does not change much in elevation, and is primarily treeless. Plains occur as lowlands along valleys or at the base of mountains, as coastal plains, and as plateaus or uplands. Plains are one of the major landforms on earth, being present on all continents and covering more than one-third of the world's land area. Plains in many areas are important for agriculture. There are various types of plains and biomes on them.
With an area of 238,397 km2 (92,046 sq mi), Romania is the twelfth-largest country in Europe. It is a country located at the crossroads of Eastern and Southeast Europe. It's bordered on the Black Sea, the country is halfway between the equator and the North Pole and equidistant from the westernmost part of Europe—the Atlantic Coast—and the most easterly—the Ural Mountains. Romania has 3,195 kilometres (1,985 mi) of border. Moldova and Ukraine lie to the east, Bulgaria to the south, and Serbia and Hungary to the west by the Pannonian Plain. In the southeast, 245 kilometres (152 mi) of sea coastline provide an important outlet to the Black Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe and Southeast Europe. Roughly 1,500 km (930 mi) long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at 2,500 km (1,600 mi) and the Scandinavian Mountains at 1,700 km (1,100 mi). The range stretches from the far eastern Czech Republic (3%) and Austria (1%) in the northwest through Slovakia (21%), Poland (10%), Ukraine (10%), Romania (50%) to Serbia (5%) in the south. The highest range within the Carpathians is known as the Tatra Mountains in Poland and Slovakia, where the highest peaks exceed 2,600 m (8,500 ft). The second-highest range is the Southern Carpathians in Romania, where the highest peaks range between 2,500 m (8,200 ft) and 2,550 m (8,370 ft).
Europe is traditionally defined as one of seven continents. Physiographically, it is the northwestern peninsula of the larger landmass known as Eurasia ; Asia occupies the centre and east of this continuous landmass. Europe's eastern frontier is usually delineated by the Ural Mountains in Russia, which is the largest country by land area in the continent. The southeast boundary with Asia is not universally defined, but the modern definition is generally the Ural River or, less commonly, the Emba River. The boundary continues to the Caspian Sea, the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, and on to the Black Sea. The Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles conclude the Asian boundary. The Mediterranean Sea to the south separates Europe from Africa. The western boundary is the Atlantic Ocean. Iceland is usually included in Europe because it is over twice as close to mainland Europe as mainland North America. There is ongoing debate on where the geographical centre of Europe falls.
The Pannonian Basin or Carpathian Basin is a large sedimentary basin situated in southeast Central Europe. After the Treaty of Trianon following World War I, the geomorphological term Pannonian Plain became more widely used for roughly the same region, referring to the lowlands in the area occupied by the Pannonian Sea during the Pliocene Epoch.
The Western Carpathians are a mountain range and geomorphological province that forms the western part of the Carpathian Mountains.
The Eurasian Steppe, also called the Great Steppe or The Steppes, is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands biome. It stretches through Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, southern Russia, Kazakhstan, Xinjiang, Mongolia and Manchuria, with one major exclave, the Pannonian steppe, located mostly in Hungary.
The Paratethys sea, Paratethys ocean, Paratethys realm or just Paratethys was a large shallow inland sea that stretched from the region north of the Alps over Central Europe to the Aral Sea in Central Asia.
The hydrology of Hungary, is mostly determined by Hungary's lying in the middle of the Carpathian Basin, half surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains. All parts of the country have some outflow. All surface water gravitates towards its southern center, and from there, is united in the Danube, which flows into the Black Sea. The whole of Hungary lies within the Danube drainage basin.
Poland is a country that extends across the North European Plain from the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south to the sandy beaches of the Baltic Sea in the north. Poland is the fifth-most populous country of the European Union and the ninth-largest country in Europe by area. The territory of Poland covers approximately 312,696 km2 (120,733 sq mi), of which 98.52% is land and 1.48% is water. The Polish coastline was estimated at 770 km (478 mi) in length. Poland's highest point is Rysy, at 2,500 m (8,202 ft).
The Pannonian Steppe is a variety of grassland ecosystems found in the Pannonian Basin. It is an exclave of the Great Eurasian Steppe, found in modern-day Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and easternmost parts of Croatia.
Hungary is in the Pannonian Basin in Central Europe, is surrounded by the Carpathians, Alps and Dinarides, but for the most part dominated by lowlands. Sixty-eight percent of the country is lowlands below 200 meters altitude. Hilly terrain covers 30% of the country, while mountains cover only 2%. The entire Pannonian Basin is in the Danube watershed.
The geology of Austria consists of Precambrian rocks and minerals together with younger marine sedimentary rocks uplifted by the Alpine orogeny.
The geology of Slovakia is structurally complex, with a highly varied array of mountain ranges and belts largely formed during the Alpine orogeny in Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras and with relicts of older Variscan structures of Paleozoic age. The internal zones of the West Carpathian orogen collapsed during Paleogene forming the Central Carpathian Paleogne Basin and later in Miocene the Pannonian Basin and Carpathian volcanic chain were formed.
The geology of Croatia has some Precambrian rocks mostly covered by younger sedimentary rocks and deformed or superimposed by tectonic activity.
The Atlantic Biogeographic Region is the biogeographic region of Europe bordering the Atlantic Ocean and North Sea.
The Continental Biogeographic Region is a biogeographic region of Europe that extends in a broad band from east to west through the center of the continent.
The Black Sea Biogeographic Region is a biogeographic region of land bordering the west and south of the Black Sea, as defined by the European Environment Agency.
The Alpine Biogeographic Region is a biogeographic region, as defined by the European Environment Agency, that covers the mountainous regions of Europe.