List Of Highest Mountains On Earth

Currently, There are at least 108 mountains on Earth with elevations of or greater above sea level. The vast majority of these mountains are located on the edge of the Indian and Eurasian plates in China, India, Nepal and Pakistan.

The dividing line between a mountain with multiple peaks and separate mountains is not always clear (see also Highest unclimbed mountain). A popular and intuitive way to distinguish mountains from subsidiary peaks is by their height above the highest saddle connecting it to a higher summit, a measure called topographic prominence or re-ascent (the higher summit is called the "parent peak"). A common definition of a mountain is a summit with prominence. Alternatively, a relative prominence (prominence/height) is used (usually 7–8%) to reflect that in higher mountain ranges everything is on a larger scale. The table below lists the highest 100 summits with at least prominence, approximating a 7% relative prominence. A drawback of a prominence-based list is that it may exclude well-known or spectacular mountains that are connected via a high ridge to a taller summit, such as Eiger, Nuptse or Annapurna IV. A few such peaks and mountains with nearly sufficient prominence are included in this list, and given a rank of "S".

It is very unlikely that all given heights are correct to the nearest metre; indeed, the sea level is often problematic to define when a mountain is remote from the sea. Different sources often differ by many metres, and the heights given below may well differ from those elsewhere in this encyclopedia. As an extreme example, Ulugh Muztagh on the north Tibetan Plateau is often listed as to , but appears to be only to . Some mountains differ by > on different maps, while even very thorough current measurements of Mount Everest range from to . These discrepancies serve to emphasize the uncertainties in the listed heights.

Though some parts of the world, especially the most mountainous parts, have never been thoroughly mapped, it is unlikely that any mountains this high have been overlooked, because synthetic aperture radar can and has been used to measure elevations of most otherwise inaccessible places. Still, heights or prominences may be revised, so that the order of the list may change and even new mountains could enter the list over time. To be safe, the list has been extended to include all peaks.

The highest mountains above sea level are generally not the highest above the surrounding terrain. There is no precise definition of surrounding base, but Denali, Mount Kilimanjaro and Nanga Parbat are possible candidates for the tallest mountain on land by this measure. The bases of mountain islands are below sea level, and given this consideration Mauna Kea ( above sea level) is the world's tallest mountain and volcano, rising about from the Pacific Ocean floor. Mount Lamlam on Guam is periodically claimed to be among the world's highest mountains because it is adjacent to the Mariana Trench; the most extreme claim is that, measured from Challenger Deep away, Mount Lamlam is tall. Ojos del Salado has the greatest rise on Earth: vertically to the summit from the bottom of the Atacama Trench, which is about away, although most of this rise is not part of the mountain.

The highest mountains are also not generally the most voluminous. Mauna Loa () is the largest mountain on Earth in terms of base area (about ) and volume (about ), although, due to the intergrade of lava from Kilauea, Hualalai and Mauna Kea, the volume can only be estimated based on surface area and height of the edifice. Mount Kilimanjaro is the largest non-shield volcano in terms of both base area () and volume (). Mount Logan is the largest non-volcanic mountain in base area ().

The highest mountains above sea level are also not those with peaks farthest from the centre of the Earth, because the figure of the Earth is not spherical. Sea level closer to the equator is several kilometres farther from the centre of the Earth. The summit of Chimborazo, Ecuador's tallest mountain, is usually considered to be the farthest point from the Earth's centre, although the southern summit of Peru's tallest mountain, Huascarán, is another contender. Both have elevations above sea level more than less than that of Everest.

Geographical distribution

Almost all mountains in the list are located in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges to the south and west of the Tibetan plateau. All peaks or higher are located in East, Central or South Asia in a rectangle edged by Noshaq () on the Afghanistan–Pakistan border in the west, Jengish Chokusu (Tuōmù'ěr Fēng, ) on the Kyrgyzstan–Xinjiang border to the north, Gongga Shan (Minya Konka, ) in Sichuan to the east, and Kabru () on the Sikkim–Nepal border to the south.

, the highest peaks on four of the mountains — Gangkhar Puensum, Labuche Kang III, Karjiang, and Tongshanjiabu, all located in Bhutan or China — have not been ascended. The most recent peak to have its first ever ascent is Saser Kangri II East, in India, on 24 August 2011.

The highest mountain outside of Asia is Aconcagua (), the 189th highest in the world.

List of world's highest peaks

Data plots

By country

The following graph ranks the countries by number of mountain peaks over 7,200 metres (23,622 ft) above sea level. Note that 38 peaks are on ''de facto'' borders and two (Jongsong Peak and Sia Kangri) are on tripoints.

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id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8)
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id:barra value:rgb(0.6,0.7,0.8)

ImageSize = width:600 height:305
PlotArea = left:50 bottom:50 top:30 right:30
DateFormat = x.y
Period = from:0 till:65
TimeAxis = orientation:vertical
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BarData=
bar:China text:China
bar:Pakistan text:Pakistan
bar:Nepal text:Nepal
bar:India text:India
bar:Bhutan text:Bhutan
bar:Afghanistan text:Afghanistan
bar:Kyrgyzstan text:Kyrgyzstan
bar:Tajikistan text:Tajikistan

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color:Barra width:40 align:center

bar:China from: 0 till:50
bar:Pakistan from: 0 till:42
bar:Nepal from: 0 till:32
bar:India from: 0 till:27
bar:Bhutan from: 0 till:5
bar:Afghanistan from: 0 till:1
bar:Kyrgyzstan from: 0 till:1
bar:Tajikistan from: 0 till:1

PlotData=

bar:China at:51 fontsize:S text: 50 shift:(2,0)
bar:Pakistan at:43 fontsize:S text: 42 shift:(2,0)
bar:Nepal at:33 fontsize:S text: 32 shift:(2,0)
bar:India at:28 fontsize:S text: 27 shift:(2,0)
bar:Bhutan at:6 fontsize:S text: 5 shift:(2,0)
bar:Afghanistan at:2 fontsize:S text: 1 shift:(2,0)
bar:Kyrgyzstan at:2 fontsize:S text: 1 shift:(2,0)
bar:Tajikistan at:2 fontsize:S text: 1 shift:(2,0)

TextData=
fontsize:S pos:(20,10) text:Number of mountain peaks over 7,200m above sea level (status quo)

Stem and leaf plot

The following is a stem and leaf plot of the above data. The two digits to the left of the line are the first two digits of the mountain's height (metres), and each digit to the right of the line represents the third digit of the mountain's height. Each number on the right is linked to the corresponding mountain's article. For example, the height of one of the mountains (namely Mount Everest) is . Also, it is apparent that there are five mountains above .

88 , 4

87 ,

86 , 1

85 , 8 1

84 , 8

83 ,

82 ,

81 , 8 6 6 2

80 , 9 8 5 3 2

79 , 5 4 3 3

78 , 9 8 7 6 2 2 1 0


77 , 9 9 8 8 5 5 4 1 0 0

76 ,
9 7 6 6 4 1 1

75 , 7 7 5 5 4 4 4 3 3 1 1

74 , 9 9 9 9 7 6 6 6 5 5 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 0 0 0

73 , 8 8 8 8 8 6 6 5 5 5 4 2 1 1 1 0

72 , 9 9 9 8 8 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 4 4 4 3 2 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Gallery

eight-thousanders