Orographic Atlas Of The Alps. SOIUSA

Until recently, in primary schools, a refrain was taught to learn the names of the different main mountain groups that make up the Alps, which went like this: "BUT WITH GRAn PENa LE RECA DOWN!', where the first syllable of each word represented the beginning of the name of an Alpine sector (MArittime, COzie, GRAie, PENnine, LEpontine, REtiche, CArniche and GIUlie).

It was also customary to associate the beginning of the Alps with the Colle di Cadibona, to the west, near Savona, and its end with the Gulf of Quarnaro, to the east, opposite the city of Rijeka. This subdivision of the Alps was introduced in Italy as far back as 1926 and has now proved to be old and obsolete as it does not take into account the other national partition systems in use in the countries of the Alpine arc. To solve the problem of harmonising and modernising the concept of the Alps, even with the current geographic-political situation, the SOIUSA, an acronym for S subdivision O, Inational U subdivision, was presented in 2005, a new system of geographic and toponymic classification of the Alps, developed by Sergio Marazzi. The formalisation of the new subdivision of the Alpine arc was sanctioned by the publication of the volume 'Atlante Orografico delle Alpi - SOIUSA', for the prestigious editions of the Turin publisher Priuli & Verlucca. The full-bodied 416-page atlas, with 148 accompanying cartographic and illustrative plates, as well as 20 photomosaics of the Alps filmed by the Landsat satellite, offers a useful comparison of SOIUSA with the reality of Alpine relief as seen from space. The volume contains a detailed alphabetical index of the names of the orographic groupings, each with its own alphanumeric identification code that allows it to be quickly located both in the text of the SOIUSA (in the Alpine section to which it belongs with the help of the page headers) and in the relevant cartographic table. But what are the substantial differences between SOIUSA and our Alps? The new system mainly introduces a bipartition of the Alpine system, western and eastern, as opposed to the previous tripartition (western, central, eastern), which was only valid in Italy as the only state with national borders that existed on the entire Alpine ridge. The new bipartition of the Alps assumes a hierarchical pyramid-like classification, for which there are, starting from the two large groups of the Western Alps and the Eastern Alps separated by the line Reno - Passo dello Spluga - Lago di Como and Lecco: 5 large sectors, 36 sections, 132 subsections, 333 supergroups, 870 groups, 1625 subgroups, with the addition of any intermediate sectors to the aforementioned groupings, all identified by alphanumeric codes. The great merit of SOIUSA is that it constitutes the unification of the Italian Alpine system with the French, Swiss, Slovenian and Austro-German systems, respecting and officially introducing local names and toponymy. The work has great scientific value, but has been conceived so as to be a popular and user-friendly tool, intended not only for mountaineers and hikers, but for all mountain enthusiasts and those who are curious about the complex world of the Alps and its mountains.

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