Description of Mountains and Mountainous Areas Mountains and Mountainous Areas in Turkey

Abstract

The complexity of the answers given to the questions of what mountain is and where mountainous areas are locatedis mainly derived from the existence of inconsistent and inaccurate responses in defining these concepts. The reasonis that mountains have no defined universal criteria. Defining mountain and mountainous areas can be considered asthe first stage of understanding natural and anthropic relations in these regions. Mountains and mountainous areascreate geographical isolation zones. This feature offers different environmental conditions in terms of morphologyand climatology. For this reason, the criteria to be used for the definition of mountains should be determinedaccording to the morphological characteristics of the field. It is seen in a small number of studies that elevationand slope characteristics are used as a common topographic criterion for the identification of mountains andmountainous areas. In this study, definitional framework of mountains in Turkey and the areas which they occupyhave been examined by using DEM with the application of UNEP-WCMC mountain classification criteria. In order toreveal the differences between geographical formations, it is necessary to identify features of the topographicalstructure and generate particular parameters accordingly. When considering the morphological structure of Turkey,the presence of plateaus and lowlands with high elevation ratios draw attention. This creates some difficulties indefining and distinguishing mountainous areas from these areas. In this respect, works will be made on differentcriteria values for Turkey as the continuation of this study. According to this study, the area covered by themountains in Turkey is 76.6%.