Key facts
- Elevation
- 2,066 m (6,778 ft)
- Traversed by
- Road
- Location
- Graubünden , Switzerland
- Range
- Lepontine Alps
- Topo map
- Swiss Federal Office of Topography swisstopo
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- mountain pass
- Country
- Switzerland
- Located in
- Canton of the Grisons
- Elevation
- 2065
- Image
- San Bernadino.jpg
Show 4 more facts
- native label
- Passo del San Bernardino
- described by source
- Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary
- Commons category
- San Bernardino Pass
- mountain range
- Lepontine Alps
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
San Bernardino Pass (Italian: Passo del San Bernardino, German: Bernhardinpass, 2,066 metres (6,778 ft)) is a high mountain pass in the Swiss Alps connecting the Hinterrhein and the Mesolcina (Misox) valleys between Thusis (canton of Graubünden) and Bellinzona (canton of Ticino). Located in the far eastern side of the Western Alps it is not to be confused with the Great St Bernard Pass and the Little St Bernard Pass. The top of the pass represents both the Italo-German language frontier and the watershed (drainage divide) between the Po basin and the Rhine basin. Marscholsee is within the pass at an elevation of 2,053 m (6,736 ft).
The route first became important as a mule track in the fifteenth century when the route between Thusis and Splügen was known as the Via Mala. A road for wheeled vehicles was opened in 1770; this road was significantly improved between 1821 and 1823, financed in part by the Kingdom of Sardinia, keen to improve a trade route connecting Genoa and Piedmont to the Graubünden that was not directly controlled by Austria.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “San Bernardino Pass” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.