Dinaric Alps

Dinaric Alps, mountain group, south-eastern Europe, part of the Eastern Alpine system. Extending from the Julian Alps, in north-eastern Italy and western Slovenia, they run south-east along the Adriatic Coast of the Balkan Peninsula to the Drin River into northern Albania, where they become the North Albanian Alps. The Dinaric Alps rise to a height of 2,522 m (8,274 ft) on Bobotov Kuk, in Montenegro.

The Dinaric Alps are characterized by massive limestone areas, known particularly for crevices, sink-holes, and caves beneath the plateaux of the Karst region, in the north of the Dinarics. It is from this area that the region’s characteristic Karst landform features get their name. In the south the mountains become increasingly wild and rugged. The surface soil is thin, and many of the rivers rising at high altitudes soon sink into cavities in the rocks and are lost until the waters reappear at lower levels along the Adriatic Coast. A few rivers, such as the Neretva, flow to the sea in precipitous gorges. The group has almost no natural passes and constitutes a barrier between the Adriatic and the interior of the peninsula. Arable lands lie chiefly in scattered depressions and along the coast.