Mountains
Mountains are the largest features found on the Earth's continents. The highest ones in the world rise over 5 miles into the sky. Mountains are usually grouped together in ranges, which can be several hundred miles wide and many thousands of miles long.
Mountain ranges are built by the same processes that cause the continents to drift over million or tens of millions of years. When continents collide, the rock in the middle is crunched upwards to form mountains.
Most of the world's weather occurs in the lowest 5 to 8 miles of the atmosphere. Consequently, mountain ranges can disrupt the flow of air by their presence, affecting the weather and changing the climate. This has happened in North America, where the Rocky Mountains that run along the entire western side of the continent have slowly changed the climate of the region that is now central Canada and the central United States. Since mountains take so long to build however, they only change climate very slowly, over tens of millions of years.
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