Montenegro Geography
Geographic location
Montenegro is located in the south-east of Europe between the Adriatic Sea and Serbia. The country has a total of 625 km of border. Its neighboring countries are: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia.
Relief
The relief of Montenegro is resolved in four main units: the coastline, the rocky plateaus, the depression and the mountains. The coastline consists of a series of narrow plains (between 2 and 10 kilometers wide), dominated by cliffs, on a very jagged coastline full of estuaries, bays and headlands. It stands out among all the Bay of Kotor, considered the southernmost fjord in Europe. It is a typically Mediterranean coastline, with low tides, which overlooks the Adriatic Sea. The coastal plains give way, abruptly, to the rocky plateaus, which rise more than 1,000 meters, with peaks that exceed 2,000 meters in altitude such as Mount Orjen. and Mount Lovcen. It is a huge limestone massif in which the forms typical of the karst relief abound. The enormous poljés are relevant, closed depressions of several kilometers in length.
The central depression develops in the interior of the country. Staying here Lake Skardar, the plains of Zeta and fields Niksic. It is about lowlands, at about 40 meters of altitude, in the northern part and about 500 in the highest areas.
To the north and east are the mountains that separate Montenegro from Serbia and Kosovo. They are part of the Dinaric Alps, chains such as the Giljeva, Mokra, Prokletije, Sinjajevina and Bjelasica mountains. In them there are high plateaus, more than 1,700 meters high, and with peaks that exceed 2,000 meters, such as the Durmitor, Bjelasica, Komovi and Visitor peaks. They are limestone mountains in which we find deep canyons, such as that of the Tara River.
Hydrography
In Montenegro the rivers are conditioned by the karst character of the rocky area. On many occasions they get lost under the limestone, and run over the terra rossa of the Poljés. The main rivers are: the Cotina, the Zeta, the Tara, the Komarnica, which flow towards the Danube, and the Black Sea, and the Moraca, which flow towards the Adriatic, in addition to a multitude of smaller basins.
In Montenegro we find about 40 lakes, most of them of karst origin, sinkholes, uvalas and poljés covered with water. The main lakes in Montenegro are the Skardar, which it shares with Albania, and the Pivsko. In addition, we must include the Bay of Kotor that extends many kilometers behind the coastline.
Climate
According to bridgat, Montenegro’s climate has clear continental nuances. Most of the country, the north and the interior have a humid continental climate, due to the presence of the coastal wall. The coastline, on the contrary, has a clearly Mediterranean climate, with three months of summer aridity. The centers of action that dominate the climate are the polar front that brings cold and humid air masses, especially from the Mediterranean, the Azores anticyclone, which exerts its influence in summer, and the thermal anticyclones from the center of the continent, which with the Siberian anticyclone it acts in winter.
On the coast, the temperature of the warmest month is around 24 ºC. Summers are long and dry, while winters are short and wet. Winters are mild, over 13ºC. Its precipitations are abundant, over 1,500 mm. In the interior of the country, summers are hotter, above 25 ºC, but winters are much colder, below 5 ºC. Summers are shorter and wetter and winters are long, dry, and cold.
The mountains are clearly more humid, and much of the precipitation is in the form of snow, which persists for many months of the year, and sometimes from one year to the next.
Vegetation
The vegetation is very abundant, and it covers the mountains completely, above 2,000 meters of altitude. In the north we find the mixed flatland and coniferous forest, and on the coast a Mediterranean forest. We can differentiate four ecoregions: the deciduous forest of Illyria, the Mediterranean forest on the coast, the mixed Balkan forest, in the extreme north and east, and the mixed forest of the Dinaric Alps, in the rest of the country.
Sports
There are many natural spaces that exist in this small country, natural spaces in which a set of activities and sports can be developed, outdoor activities in contact with nature.
Sports such as hiking, horse riding or horse riding, mountain biking, climbing, are sports that can be practiced all year round in this country, in summer, swimming and scuba diving or diving in the sea join this list of activities. or outdoor sports that can be practiced in Montenegro. In winter, there is also an ideal complex for skiing.
Practicing outdoor sports in Montenegro is not only a possibility, it is one of the most recommended activities during holidays in the Adriatic or in the interior of the country.
