10 Facts About Pyrenees

Spanish Pyrenees are part of the following provinces, from east to west: Girona, Barcelona, Lleida, Huesca, Navarra .

Central Pyrenees extend eastward from the Somport pass to the Aran Valley, and they include the highest summits of this range:.

Pyrenees are older than the Alps: their sediments were first deposited in coastal basins during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras.

Metallic ores of the Pyrenees are not in general of much importance now, though there were iron mines at several locations in Andorra, as well as at Vicdessos in Ariege, and the foot of Canigou in Pyrenees-Orientales long ago.

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.

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The eastern Pyrenees are peculiarly wild and barren, all the more since it is in this part of the chain that granitic masses prevail.

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, which grows only on a high alpine pass between the Val d'Eynes and Catalonia.

In 1997, part of the Pyrenees was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List for its spectacular geologic landforms and testimony to the unique "transhumance" agricultural system.

The Pyrenees are a good place for athletes, such as Gary Wood, to do high-altitude training in the summertime, such as by bicycling and cross-country running.

The stages held in the Pyrenees are often crucial legs of both tours, drawing hundreds of thousands of spectators to the region.