Orsha Upland
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.
The ridge is a limit of the last advance of the ice sheet, which defines its geological constitution: mostly moraine loams with added glacial and alluvial sediments.
River valleys divide the ridge into sections, uplands.
The ridge stretches approximately from west to east and separated two major lowlands: Polesie Lowland to the south and Neman Lowland and Polatsk Lowland to the north.
Features within Belarus
- Ashmyany upland
- Grodno upland
- Vaukavysk upland
- Shchara valley
- Navahradak upland
- Neman River valley
- Minsk upland
- Berezina valley
- Daugava and Vitsebsk-Nevel uplands
- Dnieper upland
- Orsha upland
- a final group of uplands along the eastern boundary with Russia
The highest elevation of the ridge (and the whole Belarus) is Mount Dzyarzhynskaya, 365m.
Features elsewhere
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f2/843.34_Wzg%C3%B3rza_Sok%C3%B3lskie.png/150px-843.34_Wzg%C3%B3rza_Sok%C3%B3lskie.png)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Geostrategy_map_of_Central_Europe.png/150px-Geostrategy_map_of_Central_Europe.png)
The part of the Grodno upland 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 between swampy areas of Dnieper and Dzwina river systems, of strategic military significance.