Alps

The Alps is a great mountain system, in southern central Europe, forming an arc some 1200 km (750 mi) long from the Gulf of Genoa to the Danube River at Vienna. 

The Alps are the highest and most densely settled mountain belt of Europe, occupying an area of about 240,000 sq km (about 92,700 sq mi).

Schilthorn. Pixiebay

The region is home to 14 million people spread across eight countries and has 120 million annual visitors.

Structurally, the Alpine mountain system is divided into the Western and Eastern Alps by a furrow that leads from the Rhine Valley in northern Switzerland, across Splügen Pass to Lake Como in northern Italy. The Western Alps average about 1000 m (about 3300 ft) higher and are narrower and more rugged than the Eastern Alps. 

The Alps are just a part of a larger orogenic belt of mountain chains, called the Alpide belt. It reaches through southern Europe and Asia from the Atlantic Ocean most of the way to the Himalayas. A gap in these mountain chains in central Europe separates the Alps from the Carpathians, the great Central Mountain System of Central Europe.

The English name Alps was taken via French from Latin Alpes. The French Alpage or Alpe in the singular mean "alpine pasture", and only in the plural may also refer to the mountain range as a whole.

The two men who first explored the higher regions of the Alps were H.B. de Saussure (1740–1799) in the Pennine Alps and the Benedictine monk of Disentis Placidus a Spescha (1752–1833), most of whose ascents were made before 1806 in the valleys at the sources of the Rhine.

The highest peak, at 15,774 ft, is Mont Blanc, on the Franco-Italian border.

The largest city within the Alps is the city of Grenoble in France. 

Its longest glaciers is the Aletsch Glacier in the Bernese Alps, which is 23 kilometers (14 miles) long.

Source Funk & Wagnells Encyclopedia