AN INTERNATIONAL TERM

Few regional names are as well-known around the world as the word Karst, both as a geological and speleological term and as the name of the region. In science, the word karst also gave name to karstology, a field within geomorphology, which studies limestone rock and special karst phenomena.

Although the word karst became well-known in scientific circles as early as in the middle of the 18th century, it was Jovan Cvijić, a Serbian student of Geography at the Vienna University, who firmly established the phrase karst phenomena in his most influential and celebrated work Das Karstphänomen.

Since then, the Karst and the karst phenomena have been extensively studied at universities in all five continents.

The name for this kind of landscape is undoubtedly of Indo-European origin. The word karus and its root word kar denote stone or rock. The pre-Latin version of the word, probably of Illyrian origin, is not known. Carsus, the Latinised version of the word karus, was introduced by the Romans towards the end of the 2nd century BC, when they conquered the Kingdom of Histria (modern-day Istria), which included the Karst region. Even the famous Greek geographer Ptolemy wrote about the karst mountains. The English word karst was borrowed from German in the late 19th century.