Iron Gate

Iron Gate or Porţile de Fier, gorge in south-western Transylvania, Romania. The name Iron Gate is applied to several points along a 160 km (90 mi) system of mountain passes, gorges, and rapids on the course of the River Danube, in the western fringes of the Carpathian Mountains. Iron Gate lies between Orşova and Drobeta-Turnu Severin in Romania on the border with Serbia. Standing 700 m (3,000 ft) above sea level, the Iron Gate of Transylvania at the system’s north-eastern end was historically the entrance to Transylvania. Forces of the Roman Empire under Trajan forced a passage through the pass in ad 106, in a battle that ended Dacian independence and routed the defenders. In 1442 a Transylvanian force under the Hungarian commander János Hunyadi destroyed a far larger Turkish army in the Iron Gate. The dramatic cliffs at the lower end of the gorge system near the border are one of Europe’s most striking natural marvels, though a damming project organized jointly by the Romanian and Yugoslav governments between 1960 and 1972 reduced the height of the cliffs above the river.