San Marino

San Marino occupies the slopes and summit of Mount Titano, a limestone promontory that rises abruptly above the hills of the Romagnol Apennines, near the Adriatic. Its nature is that of the Apennine foothills: holm oak and marcescent oak on the sunny slopes, mixed woods of oak, hornbeam and ash on the shaded ones, and scrub and dry grassland on the summit rocks. The fauna is that of the northern Apennines, with wild boar, roe deer, foxes, badgers, beech martens and hedgehogs, and a community of cliff birds that makes use of the crags of the Titano, including the peregrine falcon and the crag martin. In spring, the territory works as a stopover for migrants crossing the peninsula from the Adriatic. The country's small artificial wetlands and streams sustain amphibians such as the Italian crested newt and the green frog.