Mont Blanc massif 3.68

The Mont Blanc massif is a mountain range in the Alps, located mostly in France and Italy, but also straddling Switzerland at its northeastern end. It contains eleven major independent summits, each over 4000m in height, and is named after Mont Blanc, the highest point in western Europe and European Union. Because of its considerable overall altitude, a large proportion of the massif is covered by glaciers, which include the Mer de Glace and the Miage Glacierthe longest glaciers in France and Italy, respectively.Not only does the massif form a watershed between the vast catchments of the Rhône and Po rivers, as well as a tripoint between France, Italy and Switzerland, it also marks the border between two climate regions by separating the northern and western Alps from the southern Alps. The mountains of the massif consist mostly of granite and gneiss rocks, and at high altitudes the vegetation is an arctic-alpine flora.