Cantabrian Mountains in the context of "Castile and León"

The Pyrenees are a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. They extend nearly 500 km (310 mi) from their union with the Cantabrian Mountains to Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast, reaching a maximum elevation of 3,404 metres (11,168 ft) at the peak of Aneto.

For the most part, the main crest forms a political divide between the states of Spain and France, with the microstate of Andorra sandwiched in between. Historically, the Crown of Aragon and the Kingdom of Navarre extended on both sides of the mountain range.

Castile and León is an autonomous community in northwestern Spain. Castile and León is the largest autonomous community in Spain by area, covering 94,222 km. It is, however, sparsely populated, with a population density below 30/km. While a capital has not been explicitly declared, the seats of the executive and legislative powers are set in Valladolid by law, and for all purposes that city (also the most populated municipality) serves as the de facto regional capital.

Castile and León is a landlocked region, bordered by Portugal as well as by the Spanish autonomous communities of Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Country, La Rioja, Aragon, Castilla–La Mancha, the Community of Madrid and Extremadura. Chiefly comprising the northern half of the Inner Plateau, it is surrounded by mountain barriers (the Cantabrian Mountains to the North, the Sistema Central to the South and the Sistema Ibérico to the East) and most of the territory is drained by the Douro River (Spanish: Duero), flowing west toward the Atlantic Ocean.

Cantabria (/kænˈteɪbriə/, also UK: /-ˈtæb-/; Spanish: [kanˈtaβɾja] ) is an autonomous community and province in northern Spain with Santander as its capital city. It is called a comunidad histórica, a historic community, in its current Statute of Autonomy. It is bordered on the east by the Basque Country (province of Biscay), on the south by Castile and León (provinces of León, Palencia and Burgos), on the west by Asturias, and on the north by the Cantabrian Sea, which forms part of the Bay of Biscay.

Cantabria belongs to Green Spain, the name given to the strip of land between the Bay of Biscay and the Cantabrian Mountains, so called because of its particularly lush vegetation, due to the wet and temperate oceanic climate. The climate is strongly influenced by Atlantic Ocean winds trapped by the mountains; the average annual precipitation is about 1,200 mm (47 inches).

The Pisuerga is a river in northern Spain, the Duero's second largest tributary. It rises in the Cantabrian Mountains in the province of Palencia, autonomous region of Castile and León.Its traditional source is called Fuente Cobre, but it has been discovered that the real source is a glacier higher in the mountains. The river flows south into the Douro river shortly after passing through the city of Valladolid. Its length is approximately 270 kilometres (170 mi).

Since the 1950s the water level of the river has been very regular throughout the year due to the huge Aguilar de Campoo dam which collects all the water from the river's rainy upper valleys. This regulation has allowed the creation of vast extensions of irrigated farmland along the Pisuerga's course across the northern Castilian plain.

Torre Cerredo, also called Torrecerredo or Torre de Cerredo (Asturian: La Torre Cerréu), is the highest peak of the Cantabrian Mountains, northern Spain.With a prominence of 1,931 m, it is an ultra-prominent peak and the third most prominent peak of the Iberian Peninsula.

The Armorican Massif (French: Massif armoricain, pronounced [masif aʁmɔʁikɛ̃]) is a geologic massif that covers a large area in the northwest of France, including Brittany, the western part of Normandy and the Pays de la Loire. It is important because it is connected to Dover on the British side of the English Channel and there has been tilting back and forth that has controlled the geography on both sides.

Its name comes from the old Armorica, a Gaul area between the rivers Loire and Seine. The massif is composed of metamorphic and magmatic rocks that were metamorphosed and/or deformed during the Hercynian or Variscan orogeny (400 to 280 million years ago) and the earlier Cadomian orogeny (650 to 550 million years ago). The region was uplifted when the Bay of Biscay opened during the Cretaceous period. The Cantabrian Mountains and the Armorican Massif were then rift shoulders of the Bay of Biscay.

Blanket bog or blanket mire, also known as featherbed bog, is an area of peatland, forming where there is a climate of high rainfall and a low level of evapotranspiration, allowing peat to develop not only in wet hollows but over large expanses of undulating ground. The blanketing of the ground with a variable depth of peat gives the habitat type its name.

The current distribution of blanket bogs globally remains unknown but they are found extensively throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Well-studied examples are found in Ireland and Scotland, but vast areas of North American tundra also qualify as blanket bogs. In Europe, the southernmost edge of range of this habitat has been recently mapped in the Cantabrian Mountains of northern Spain.