Pyrénes

Pyrénes /ˈpɪrəˈneɪz/ (Pyrean: Pyrénos /ˈpɪˈrinoʊz/), officially the Republic of Pyrénes (Pyrean: Reppo Pyrénos /riˈpˈpɑ ˈpɪˈrinoʊz/) is a sovereign state located in the northern and southern borders of the Pyrenees Mountains in southwerstern Europe. It is bordered by the Bay of Biscay to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the east, Spain to the south and France to the north.

Modern humans first arrived in the territory of Pyrénes around 35,000 years ago. The Pyrean culture along with ancient Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian settlement developed in the area until it came under Roman rule around 200 BCE, after which the current territory was split between the region of Gaul and Hispania. In the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Pyrénes emerged as a unified country in the 12th century, following the Pyrean War of Reconquest. In the early modern period, Pyrénes joined the colonial race and became one of the first global colonial empire in history, leaving a vast cultural and linguistic legacy that includes over 100 million Pyrean speakers, making the Pyrean language widely used across the world.

Pyrénes is a democracy organised in the form of a parliamentary government. It is a middle power and a developed country with the world's twentieth largest economy by nominal GDP and twenty-third by purchasing power parity. It is member of the Earth Congress (EC), the United European Union (UEU), the Council of Europe (CoE), the Organization of Pyreo-American States (OEP), the Atlantic Military Organization (AMO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Trade Organization (ITO) and many other international organisations.

Etymology
In classical mythology, Pyrene is a princess who gave her name to the Pyrenees, the mountain which is in Pyrénes' territory. The Greek historian Herodotus says Pyrene is the name of a town in Celtic Europe. According to Silius Italicus, she was the virginal daughter of Bebryx, a king in Mediterranean Gaul by whom the Hero Hercules was given hospitality during his quest to steal the cattle of Geryon during his famous Labors. Hercules, characteristically drunk and lustful, violates the sacred code of hospitality and rapes his host's daughter. Pyrene gives birth to a serpent and runs away to the woods, afraid that her father will be angry. Alone, she pours out her story to the trees, attracting the attention instead of wild beasts who tear her to pieces.

After his victory over Geryon, Hercules passes through the kingdom of Bebryx again, finding the girl's lacerated remains. As is often the case in stories of this hero, the sober Hercules responds with heartbroken grief and remorse at the actions of his darker self, and lays Pyrene to rest tenderly, demanding that the surrounding geography join in mourning and preserve her name: "struck by Herculean voice, the mountaintops shudder at the ridges; he kept crying out with a sorrowful noise 'Pyrene!' and all the rock-cliffs and wild-beast haunts echo back 'Pyrene!' … The mountains hold on to the wept-over name through the ages." Pliny the Elder connects the story of Hercules and Pyrene to Lusitania, but rejects it as fabulosa, highly fictional.

Historical names for Pyrénes

 * Kingdom of Pyrénes / Kinno Pyrénos
 * Kingdom of the Pyrenees / Kinno ga Pyrénoos
 * Pyrean Empire / Impro Pyréno
 * Pyrean-Occitan Union / Unnio Pyréno-Occino
 * United Kingdom of Pyrénes and Occitania / Kinno Unnido Pyrénos ne Occitoa
 * Kingdom of Mountains / Kinno Montinos

Current names for Pyrénes

 * Republic of Pyrénes / Reppo Pyrénos
 * Republic of the Pyrenees / Reppo ga Pyrénoos
 * Republic of Mountains / Reppo Montinos

Geography
Physiographically, Pyrénes may be divided into three sections: the Atlantic (or Western), the Central, and the Eastern part of Pyrénes. The same thing can be said for the Pyrenees mountains. Together, they form a distinct physiographic province of the larger Alpine system division.

In the Western Pyrenees, from the Basuq mountains near the Bay of Biscay of the Atlantic Ocean, the average elevation gradually increases from west to east.

The Central Pyrenees extend eastward from the Arano Valley to the Somporto pass, and they include the highest summits of this range:
 * Picco d'Aneto 3,404 metres (11,168 ft) in the Maladata ridge,
 * Picco Posests 3,375 metres (11,073 ft),
 * Monto Perdido 3,355 metres (11,007 ft).

In the Eastern Pyrenees, with the exception of one break at the eastern extremity of the Pyrénées Ariégeoises, the mean elevation is remarkably uniform until a sudden decline occurs in the easternmost portion of the chain known as the Albéros.

Climate
The amount of precipitation the range receives, including rain and snow, is much greater in the western than in the eastern Pyrenees because of the moist air that blows in from the Atlantic Ocean over the Bay of Biscay. After dropping its moisture over the western and central Pyrenees, the air is left dry over the eastern Pyrenees. The winter average temperature is -2 °C (28.4 °F).

Sections of the mountain range vary in more than one respect. There are some glaciers in the western and snowy central Pyrenees, but there are no glaciers in the eastern Pyrenees because there is insufficient snowfall to cause their development. Glaciers are confined to the northern slopes of the central Pyrenees, and do not descend, like those of the Alps, far down into the valleys but rather have their greatest lengths along the direction of the mountain chain. They form, in fact, in a narrow zone near the crest of the highest mountains. Here, as in the other great mountain ranges of central Europe, there is substantial evidence of a much wider expanse of glaciation during the Ice Ages. The best evidence of this is in the valley of Argeles Gazost, between Lourdes and Gavarnie, in the region of Hautes-Pyrénées.

The annual snow-line varies in different parts of the Pyrenees from about 2,700 to 2,800 metres above sea level. In average the seasonal snow is observed at least 50% of the time above 1,600 metres between December and April.

Flora
A still more marked effect of the preponderance of rainfall in the western half of the chain is seen in the vegetation. The lower mountains in the extreme west are wooded, but the extent of forest declines as one moves eastwards. The eastern Pyrenees are peculiarly wild and barren, all the more since it is in this part of the chain that granitic masses prevail. Also moving from west to east, there is a change in the composition of the flora, with the change becoming most evident as one passes the centre of the mountain chain from which point the Corbières stretch north-eastwards towards the central plateau of France. Though the difference in latitude is only about 1°, in the west the flora resembles that of central Europe while in the east it is distinctly Mediterranean in character. The Pyrenees are nearly as rich in endemic species as the Alps, and among the most remarkable instances of that endemism is the occurrence of the monotypic genus Xatardia (family Apiaceae), which grows only on a high alpine pass between the Val d'Eynes and Catalonia. Other examples include Arenaria montana, Bulbocodium vernum, and Ranunculus glacialis. The genus most abundantly represented in the range is that of the saxifrages, several species of which are endemic here.

Fauna
In their fauna the Pyrenees present some striking instances of endemism. The Pyrenean desman is found only in some of the streams of the northern slopes of these mountains; the only other member of this genus is confined to the rivers of the Caucasus in southern Russia. The Pyrenean euprocte (Euproctus pyrenaicus), an endemic relative of the salamander, also lives in streams and lakes located at high altitudes. Among other peculiarities of Pyrenean fauna are blind insects in the caverns of Ariège, the principal genera of which are Anophthalmus and Adelops.

The Pyrenean Ibex mysteriously became extinct in January 2000; the native Pyrenean brown bear was hunted to near-extinction in the 1990s, but it was re-introduced in 1996 when three bears were brought from Slovenia. The bear population has bred successfully, and there are now believed to be about 15 brown bears in the central region around Fos, but only four native ones are still living in the Aspe Valley.