The Belarusian Ridge (Belarusian: Беларуская града, romanizedBielaruskaja hrada) is a line of terminal moraines, which is almost entirely in the northwest of Belarus. The feature is part of the East European Plain.

Belarusian Ridge on a European map

This ridge, consisting of low, rolling hills, runs for about 500 km in the direction from west-southwest to east-northeast, from the area of the Brest region, which is close to the border of Poland to the Russian town of Smolensk.[1]

The ridge is a limit of the last advance of the ice sheet,[2] which defines its geological constitution: mostly moraine loams with added glacial and alluvial sediments.[1]

River valleys divide the ridge into sections, uplands.[2]

The ridge stretches approximately from west to east and separated two major lowlands: Polesie Lowland to the south and Neman Lowland [be] and Polatsk Lowland [be] to the north.[2]

Features within Belarus

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The highest elevation of the ridge (and the whole Belarus) is Mount Dzyarzhynskaya, 365m.

Features elsewhere

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Wzgórza Sokólskie
 
Geostrategic map of Central Europe with Smolensk Gate (Brama Smolenska) marked in the center

The part of the Grodno upland [be] within Poland is called Wzgórza Sokólskie, of area about 1,300sq.km.

A small patch in the north belongs to Lithuania

To the east it connects to the Smolensk–Moscow Upland, Russia via a narrow corridor called the Smolensk Gate [pl] between swampy areas of Dnieper and Dzwina river systems, of strategic military significance.[3]

References

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53°52′26″N 26°59′09″E / 53.87389°N 26.98583°E / 53.87389; 26.98583