It also borders two other countries – Poland (Opole and Silesian Voivodeships) to the north and Slovakia (Žilina Region) to the east.

[8] The geography of the region varies considerably, comprising many land forms from lowlands to high mountains whose summits lie above the tree line.

The mountains are heavily forested, with many spectacular places and famous spas such as Karlova Studánka and Jeseník, so are very popular with tourists.

The former flows to the south-west, the latter to the north-east, where the terrain spreads into the flat Ostrava Basin and Opava Hilly Land, where most of the population lives.

The region's heavy industry, which has been in decline for the last decade, is located there, too, benefiting from huge deposits of hard coal.

The Jeseníky PLA (with an area of 745 km2 or 288 sq mi) lies in the mountain range of the same name in the north east of the region.

The Poodří PLA (81.5 km2 or 31.5 sq mi) lies in the Moravian Gate, in close proximity to the region's capital Ostrava, on the banks of the meandering Odra.

It is an area of floodplain forests (one of the last preserved in Central Europe), flooded meadows, and many shallow ponds, on which water birds thrive.

The most notable of them is the lime Šipka Cave near Štramberk, where remnants of a Neanderthal man were discovered in the late 19th century.

Příbor, the birthplace of Sigmund Freud, was an important center of education for northern Moravia from the 17th century to the first half of the 20th.

Hukvaldy, in a village of the same name under the Moravian-Silesian Beskids, is one of the region's many castle ruins, known for a musical festival dedicated to the composer Leoš Janáček, who was born there.

Six of its districts, Bruntál, Frýdek-Místek, Karviná, Nový Jičín, Opava, and Ostrava, were in 2000 put into the newly established Moravian-Silesian Region.