a small segment of a discontinuous mountain chain that stretches from the Atlas Mountains of North Africa across southern Europe and Asia to beyond the Himalayas. The Alps extend north from the subtropical Mediterranean coast near Nice, Fr., to Lake Geneva before trending east–northeast to Vienna (at the Vienna Woods). There they touch the Danube River and meld with the adjacent plain. The Alps form part of nine nations: France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Yugoslavia. Only Switzerland and Austria can be considered true Alpine nations, however. Some 750 miles (1,200 kilometres) long and more than 125 miles wide at their broadest point between Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Ger., and Verona, Italy, the Alps cover more than 80,000 square miles (207,000 square kilometres). They are the most prominent of western Europe's physiographic regions.