German:Banater Berglanddeutsche  | |
|---|---|
 The coat of arms of the Banat Highland Germans (as part of the Banat Swabians and Danube Swabians in general) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Banat (south-western Romania), more specificallyCaraș-Severin County | |
| Languages | |
| German (with theBanat Swabian dialect, a local type of theSwabian dialect) | |
| Religion | |
| PrimarilyRoman Catholicism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Germans (most notablySwabians andDanube Swabians respectively) | |
Native to south-western present-day Romania |
TheBanat Highland Germans orBanat Mountainous Germans (German:Banater Berglanddeutsche,Romanian:Germanii din Banatul montan) are an ethnicGerman sub-group which is part of theBanat Swabians (and the broaderDanube Swabian group) who have been living in the mountainous part of theBanat (German:Banater Bergland or Montanbanat),[1] corresponding toCaraș-Severin County situated in present-day south-westernRomania (and to a smaller extentSerbia as well).[2]
Within the larger community of Banat Highland Germans, there have also beenZipser Germans (German:Zipser Sachsen), an ethnic German minority group which mostly settled inMaramureș and southernBucovina fromZips, present-daySlovakia. The Banat Highland Germans are part of theRomanian Germans.
The Banat Highland Germans are a mixture of variousGerman-speaking settlers fromSalzkammergut (now inAustria), theSouth Tyrol (now inItaly), theBohemian Forest (now in theCzech Republic), theBavarian Forest, andSwabia (now inGermany).[3][4][5] There were alsoZipser colonists in the mountainous Banat. Consequently, they speak a certain series of differentGerman dialects than the Banat Swabians in the lowlands of Banat, hence the differentiation in their name based on altitude or elevation.
The Banat Highland Germans constituted themselves as an ethnic German sub-group in the present-day mountainous region of Banat during themodern period, in the time ofAustria-Hungary.[citation needed]
Like all other German minority groups in Romania, the Banat Highland Germans are represented by theDemocratic Forum of Germans in Romania (FDGR/DFDR), more specifically by the local branch in the mountainous Banat known in German asDemokratisches Forum der Banater Berglanddeutsche.[6]