Sierra Madre Occidental Sierra Madre Occidental The Sierra Madre Occidental is a major mountain range system of the North American Cordillera, that runs northwest–southeast through Northwestern and Western Mexico, and along the Gulf of California. The Sierra Madre is part of the American Cordillera, a chain of mountain ranges (cordillera) that consists of an almost continuous sequence of mountain ranges that form the western "backbone" of North America, Central America, South America and Antarctica. The Spanish name "sierra madre" means "mother mountains" and "occidental" means "western" in English, with these being the "Western Mother Mountains". To the east, from the Spanish "oriental" meaning
Bieszczady Mountains Besczade". A colloquial Polish term referring to Bieszczady is "Biesy", because folk etymology connects the origin of the mountains to demonic "(bies)" activity. The true etymology of the name "Bieszczady" is unknown. It may be related to Middle Low German "beshêt", "beskēt", meaning watershed. Since there exist many variants of divisions of the mountain ranges and names for the Beskids and Ukrainian Carpathians, several divisions are given in the following: Division 1: Division 2: Division 3: Division 4: In an old Ukrainian division, what is defined here as the Bieszczady in a wider sense corresponds to the western part of