Area, neighbouring landscapes and boundaries
The Ore Mountains are about 150 km long in (south-)west-(north-)east direction and 40 km wide on average. From a geomorphological point of view it is divided into Western, Central and Eastern Ore Mountains, separated by the valleys of Schwarzwasser and Zwickauer Mulde resp. Flöha ("Flöhalinie"), whereas the division of the western part along the Schwarzwasser is more recent. The Osterzgebirge is mainly characterized by extensive, slowly rising plateaus, which are smaller in the more indented and higher reaching central and western part and are also intersected by more frequently changing direction valleys. The ridge of the mountain itself forms, in all three segments, a succession of plateaus and individual mountains.
To the east are the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, to the west the Elster Mountains and other Saxon parts of the Vogtland. South (east) of the Central and Eastern Ore Mountains lies the North Bohemian Basin, immediately east of which is the Bohemian Central Upland, separated from the Eastern Ore Mountains by narrow foothills of the above-mentioned basin. South (east) of the Westerzgebirge lie the Falkenau Basin, the Egergraben and the Duppau Mountains. To the north the border is blurred, because the Erzgebirge, as a typical representative of the Pultschollengebirge, slopes very flat.
The transition zone between the western and central Erzgebirge mountains and the loess hill country to the north between Zwickau and Chemnitz is known as the Erzgebirge basin, while the area north of the Osterzgebirge mountains is known as the Erzgebirge foreland. The Erzgebirge foreland between Freital and Pirna is called the Dresden Erzgebirge foreland or the Bannewitz-Possendorf-Burkhardswalder plateau. Geologically, the Ore Mountains extend to the city limits of Dresden with the Windberg near Freital and the Karsdorf Fault. The notch valleys of the Osterzgebirge break through this fault and the valley shoulder of the Elbe basin.
Within the low mountain range threshold, the Ore Mountains belong on the one hand to the mountain range called Bohemian Mass, which also consists of the Upper Palatinate Forest, Bohemian Forest, Bavarian Forest, Lusatian Mountains, Jizera Mountains, Giant Mountains and the inner Bohemian Mountains. Likewise, with the Upper Palatinate Forest, Bohemian Forest, Bavarian Forest, Fichtelgebirge, Franconian Forest, Thuringian Slate Mountains and Thuringian Forest, it forms a ypsilon-shaped mountain complex which, although it does not have its own name, is to be assessed climatically quite uniformly.
Following the tradition of the cultural areas, Zwickau historically still belongs to the Erzgebirge, Chemnitz lies in an analogous way historically just outside and Freiberg is again included. The presumed border of the Erzgebirge runs further southwest of Dresden towards the Elbe Sandstone Mountains. The main character, i.e. flat plateaus rising to the ridge and incisive valleys, continues to the southern edge of the Elbe basin. North of the Erzgebirge, the landscape gradually changes into the Saxon Loess Gefilde. The cultural transition to the Elbe Sandstone Mountains is very blurred at the height of the Müglitz and Gottleuba valleys.
Remarkable surveys
→ Main article: List of mountains in the Ore Mountains
The highest mountain in the Ore Mountains is Klínovec (Keilberg) at 1,244 metres in the Bohemian part of the mountains. The highest elevation on the German side and at the same time the highest mountain in Saxony is the 1,215-meter-high Fichtelberg. In the Ore Mountains there are about thirty elevations with a height of more than 1,000 meters above sea level, but not all of them are prominent mountains. Most are found around the Keilberg and the Fichtelberg. About a third of them are on the Saxon side.
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The peaks of Klínovec and Fichtelberg (from the left), which clearly tower above the other elevations of the mountain range, as seen from Mědník, about 10 kilometres away.
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