The range stretches from the eastern edge of the Czech Republic (3%) and Austria (1%) in the northwest through Slovakia (21%), Poland (10%), Ukraine (10%), Romania (50%) to Serbia (5%) in the south.

[14][15] Although the toponym was recorded by Ptolemy in the second century AD,[16] the modern form of the name is a neologism in most languages.

kárpa / kárpat ('rock, stiff'), and the Messapic karpa 'tuff (rock), limestone' (preserved as càrpë 'tuff' in Bitonto dialect and càrparu 'limestone' in Salentino).

[20][21] The name Carpates may ultimately be from the Proto Indo-European root *sker-/*ker-, which meant mountain, rock, or rugged (cf.

[23] The Western Carpathians were called Carpates, a name that is first recorded in Ptolemy's Geographia (second century AD).

They surround Transcarpathia and Transylvania in a large semicircle, sweeping towards the southeast, and end on the Danube near Orșova in Romania.

Rather, they consist of several orographically and geologically distinctive groups, presenting as great a structural variety as the Alps.

[27] The Carpathians at their highest altitude are only as high as the middle region of the Alps, with which they share a common appearance, climate, and flora.

The valley of the March and Oder separates the Carpathians from the Silesian and Moravian chains, which belong to the middle wing of the great Central Mountain System of Europe.

The Carpathian mountains were formed during the Alpine orogeny in the Mesozoic[28] and Cenozoic by moving the ALCAPA (Alpine-Carpathian-Pannonian), Tisza and Dacia plates over subducting oceanic crust.

The Carpathian accretionary wedge is made of several thin skinned nappes composed of Cretaceous to Paleogene turbidites.

[32] Internal zones in western and eastern segments contain older Variscan igneous massifs reworked in Mesozoic thick and thin-skinned nappes.

At the same time, the internal zones of the orogenic belt were affected by large extensional structure[34] of the back-arc Pannonian Basin.

The geological border between the Western and Eastern Carpathians runs approximately along the line (south to north) between the towns of Michalovce, Bardejov, Nowy Sącz and Tarnów.

The border between the eastern and southern Carpathians is formed by the Predeal Pass, south of Brașov and the Prahova Valley.

According to modern geopolitical division, Carpathians can be grouped as: Serbian, Romanian, Ukrainian, Polish, Slovakian, Czech and Austrian.

Terms like Wooded Carpathians, Poloniny Mountains or Eastern Beskids are often used in varying scopes by authors belonging to different traditions.