page_title: Sudetes
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Sudetes / History
caption_attribution_description: Kościół Wang
context_page_description: The Sudetes are a mountain range in Central Europe. They are the highest part of Bohemian Massif. They stretch from the Saxon capital of Dresden in the northwest, to the Głubczyce plateau in Poland and to the Ostrava Basin and Moravian Gate in the Czech Republic in the east. Geographically the Sudetes are a Mittelgebirge with some characteristics typical of high mountains. Its plateaus and subtle summit relief makes the Sudetes more akin to mountains of Northern Europe than to the Alps.
  In the west, the Sudetes border with the Elbe Sandstone Mountains. The westernmost point of the Sudetes lies in the Dresden Heath, the westernmost part of the West Lusatian Hill Country and Uplands, in Dresden. In the east of the Sudetes, the Moravian Gate and Ostrava Basin separates from the Carpathian Mountains. The Sudetes' highest mountain is Mount Sněžka/Śnieżka, which is also the highest mountain of the Czech Republic, Bohemia, Silesia, and Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in the Krkonoše/Karkonosze Mountains, lying on the border between the Czech Republic and Poland. Mount Praděd in the Hrubý Jeseník Mountains is the highest mountain of Moravia.
context_section_description: The area around the Sudetes had by the 12th century been relatively densely settled with agriculture and settlements expanding further in the High Middle Ages from the 13th century onward. The majority of settlers were Germans from neighbouring Silesia, founding typical Waldhufendörfer. As this trend went on thinning of forest and deforestation had turned clearly unsustainable by the 14th century. In the 15th and 16th centuries agriculture had reached the inner part of Stołowe Mountains in the Central Sudetes. Destruction and degradation of the Sudetes forest peaked in the 16th and 17th centuries with demand of firewood coming from glasshouses that operated through the area in the early modern period.
  Some limited form of forest management begun in the 18th century while in the industrial age demand for firewood was sustained by metallurgic industries in the settlements and cities around the mountains. In the 19th century the Central Sudetes had an economic boom with sandstone quarrying and a flourishing tourism industry centered on the natural scenery. Despite of this there was at least since the 1880s a trend of depopulation of villages and hamlets which continued into the 20th century. Since World War II various areas that were cleared of forest have been re-naturalized. Industrial activity across Europe has caused considerable damage to the forests as acid rain and heavy metals has arrived with westerly and southwesterly winds. Silver firs have proven particularly vulnerable to industrial soil contamination.
caption: Vang Stave Church
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot Pro90 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2006:10:11 18:43:51", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "228", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1090", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6516", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/320", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:10:11 13:29:05", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:10:11 13:29:05", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "133/16", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "97349/32768", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "13107/200", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "207/16", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1856", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1392", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "1856", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1392", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "940", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "464000/63", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "464000/63", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera"}