The following is a list of mountains that have been presumed, at one time, to be the highest mountain in the world. How general the following presumptions were is unclear. Before the
Age of Discovery
The Age of Discovery (or the Age of Exploration), also known as the early modern period, was a period largely overlapping with the Age of Sail, approximately from the 15th century to the 17th century in European history, during which seafarin ...
, no geographer could make any plausible assumption.
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Chimborazo
Chimborazo () is a currently inactive stratovolcano in the Cordillera Occidental range of the Andes. Its last known eruption is believed to have occurred around 550 A.D.
Chimborazo's summit is the farthest point on the Earth's surface from th ...
, . Presumed highest from sixteenth century until the beginning of the 19th century. Not in the top 100 highest mountains when measured from sea level, however due to the Earth's
equatorial bulge
An equatorial bulge is a difference between the equatorial and polar diameters of a planet, due to the centrifugal force exerted by the rotation about the body's axis. A rotating body tends to form an oblate spheroid rather than a sphere.
On Ea ...
this is the farthest point from the Earth's center.
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Nanda Devi
Nanda Devi is the second-highest mountain in India, after Kangchenjunga, and the highest located entirely within the country (Kangchenjunga is on the border of India and Nepal). It is the 23rd-highest peak in the world.
Nanda Devi was consid ...
, . Presumed highest in the world in an era when
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
was still closed to the outside world. Now known to be the 23rd highest mountain in the world.
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Dhaulagiri
Dhaulagiri is the seventh highest mountain in the world at above sea level, and the highest mountain within the borders of a single country (Nepal). It was first climbed on 13 May 1960 by a Swiss-Austrian-Nepali expedition.
Annapurna I () is ...
, . Presumed highest from 1808 until 1847.
Now known to be the 7th highest mountain in the world.
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Kangchenjunga
Kangchenjunga, also spelled Kanchenjunga, Kanchanjanghā (), and Khangchendzonga, is the third highest mountain in the world. Its summit lies at in a section of the Himalayas, the ''Kangchenjunga Himal'', which is bounded in the west by the T ...
, . Presumed highest from 1847 until 1852. Now known to be the 3rd highest mountain in the world.
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K2, . Discovered in 1856 before Mount Everest's status was officially confirmed, K2's elevation became something of an enigma until it was officially resolved at a later date.
News media reported in 1986 that satellite measurements by the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...
during an expedition to K2 by George Wallenstein had given a height between and ,
which would have made it the world's highest mountain. However, this erroneous figure was quickly retracted, and K2's status as second highest was reaffirmed.
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Mount Everest
Mount Everest (; Tibetan: ''Chomolungma'' ; ) is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation (snow heig ...
, . Established as highest in 1852 and officially confirmed in 1856.
See also
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World altitude record (mountaineering)
In the history of mountaineering, the world altitude record referred to the highest point on the Earth's surface which had been reached, regardless of whether that point was an actual summit. The world summit record referred to the highest mounta ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Past presumed highest mountains
Presumed