Ural Mountains

The Ural Mountains (or simply, the Urals) are a mountain range, one of the oldest extant mountain ranges in the world. A nearly vertical line drawn roughly across the middle of the landmass of Eurasia, traditionally separating Europe and Asia.

This mountain range forms conventional boundary between Europe and Asia, as well as the separation between European Russia and Siberia. The Ural mountains run mostly through Russia and northwestern Kazakhstan, roughly north-south. [1]

Origins & History

A 13th century legend from Bashkortostan tells of a hero named Ural who sacrificed himself to save his people. In honour of him, his people poured a stone pile over his grave, which is said to have turned into the Ural Mountains.

The modern Russian name for the Ural Mountains (Урал, Ural) first appeared in writing around the 16th–17th centuries (1500s-1600s CE). [1] However, it is not exactly clear where the name ‘Ural’ came from. [1] Some say that it was borrowed from Turkic meaning “stone belt”, from Bashkir where the same name is used as the Turks, or else from Ob-Ugric. [1]

The Indigenous peoples of the Urals have a number of names for the range: Komi Iz, Mansi Nyor, Khanty Kev, Nenets Ngarka pe. [1]

Merchants from the Middle East traded with the Bashkirs, who lived on the western slopes of Ural Mountains (as far north as the Great Perm). [1] Since the 10th century medieval geographers from the Middle East had been aware of the Ural Range in its entirety. [1]

Geography

The Ural Mountains reach from the Kara Sea in the north to the Kazakh Steppe in the south, along the border of Kazakhstan — a distance of about 2,500 km (1,600 mi). [1]

Geographically the Ural range markers the northern part of the conventional border between Europe and Asia.

Geology

The Urals are among the world’s oldest extant mountain ranges in the world, some estimating the age in which they were formed to be between 250–300 mya. [1]

During the period of the late Carboniferous – early Triassic, the Urals formed during the Uralian orogeny when the east edge of the supercontinent Laurasia collided with the young continent of Kazakhstania. [1] (Today Kazakhstania remains beneath much of Kazakhstan and West Siberia, west of the Irtysh and intervening island arcs.) [1]