In the traditional context, the Noric Alps are located mostly in
Austria — 98% of the region is Austrian, mainly in the southern states of
Carinthia and
Styria—, with a small area in the adjacent
Lower Styria region of
Slovenia. The area covers and stretches from the upper Mur River in the North to the Drava in the South and from the
Katschberg Pass in the West to the Mur River in the East. The Noric Alps are surrounded by the
Hohe Tauern range in the West and the
Low Tauern in the North, in the South they border on the
Gailtal Alps, the
Karavanke and
Pohorje ranges of the
Southern Limestone Alps. The highest point is Mt. Eisenhut in Styria, which, at , is only modest in the context of the Eastern Alps, where many mountains rise above 3,000 m (10,000 ft). Other notable peaks in the range are Rosennock (), Zirbitzkogel () and Großer Speikkogel (). In the south the Noric Alps comprise the
Klagenfurt Basin with the historic centres of
Zollfeld and
Magdalensberg. The mountainside is characterised by
transhumance (
Alm) agriculture and was also a mining area, still for
magnesite in the area of
Radenthein. Today the region largely depends on
tourism, in winter around the
ski aras of
Bad Kleinkirchheim,
Krems, at
Katschberg,
Turracher Höhe and
Klippitztörl, in summer around several picturesque Carinthian lakes like
Wörthersee,
Lake Millstatt or
Lake Ossiach. The
Nock Mountain National Park, accessible via the
Nockalmstraße scenic road, is a
protected landscape according to
IUCN V category. The
Norian Age in the
Triassic Period of geological time is named for the Noric Alps == Classification ==