Blue Mountains (Jamaica) - Geography

Geography

The Blue Mountains rise to these elevations from the coastal plain in the space of about sixteen kilometers, thus producing one of the steepest general gradients in the world. The Blue Mountains form a cooling relief from the sweltering heat of Kingston below. These summits rise and fall along for 24 miles long and 14 miles at its widest point, where the temperature decreases from around 27°C (80°F) at sea level to 5°C (40°F) at Blue Mountain Peak, just 16 km (9.9 mi) inland.

As one of the longest continuous mountain ranges in the Caribbean, the Blue Mountains dominate the eastern third of Jamaica, while bordering the eastern parishes of Portland, St. Thomas, St. Mary and St. Andrew to the south. Part of the Blue Mountains is contained in the Blue Mountain John Crow Mountain National Park established in 1992, which is maintained by the Jamaican government.

Read more about this topic:  Blue Mountains (Jamaica)

Famous quotes containing the word geography:

    Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Ktaadn, near which we were to pass the next day, is said to mean “Highest Land.” So much geography is there in their names.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it, only, that thyself is here;—and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall not absent from the chamber where thou sittest.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)