mountain
A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited Summit (topography), summit area, and ...
Great Dividing Range
The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills, that runs rough ...
New South Wales
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, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
.
With an elevation of
above sea level
Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''.
The comb ...
Kosciuszko National Park
The Kosciuszko National Park () is a national park and contains mainland Australia's highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko, for which it is named, and Cabramurra, the highest town in Australia. Its borders contain a mix of rugged mountains and wildern ...
, the mountain is north of Australia's highest mainland peak,
Mount Kosciuszko
Mount Kosciuszko ( ; Ngarigo: , ), previously spelled Mount Kosciusko, is mainland Australia's tallest mountain, at 2,228 metres (7,310 ft) above sea level. It is located on the Main Range of the Snowy Mountains in Kosciuszko National ...
.
Although lower than Mount Kosciuszko, Mount Townsend has a more craggy peak and is arguably more dominant than the relatively round-topped Mount Kosciuszko.
The confusion about swapping the names of Mount Kosciuszko and Mount Townsend was straightened out in 1940 by B. T. Dowd, a cartographer and historian of the NSW Lands Department. His study reaffirmed that the mountain named by Strzelecki as Mount Kosciuszko was indeed, as the NSW maps had always shown, Australia's highest summit. When Macarthur's field book of the historical journey was published in 1941 by C. Daley C. Daley ''Count Paul Strzelecki’s Ascent of Mount Kosciusko and Journey through Gippsland'' The Victorian Historical Magazine, vol.19, no 2, pp. 41-53, 1941 it further confirmed Dowd's clarification. This means that Targangil, mentioned in Spencer's 1885 article," M. Spencer ''The Highest Point in Australia'' The Sydney Morning Herald, February 18, 1885" was the indigenous name of Mount Townsend, not of Mount Kosciuszko.
Mount Townsend has a prominence of only 189m which is relatively low compared to other mountains worldwide. In the more stricter prominence cut off points, the most common of which being the 300m prominence rule, Townsend would not be classified as its own mountain, and instead a subsidiary peak. Due to Australia's much flatter topography than all other continents, a prominence cut off point of 300m is almost never used instead opting for less strict definitions of 50m or 100m when classifying peaks. If using the 300m rule this makes
Mount Bogong
Mount Bogong, , located in the Alpine National Park and part of the Victorian Alps of the Great Dividing Range, is the highest mountain in Victoria, Australia, at above sea level.
The Big River separates the massif of the mountain from ...
in Victoria the second highest mountain.
See also
*
Australian Alps
The Australian Alps is a mountain range in southeast Australia. It comprises an interim Australian bioregion,
*
List of mountains of Australia
This is a list of mountains in Australia.
Highest points by state and territory
List of mountains in Australia by topographic prominence
This is a list of the top 50 mountains in Australia ranked by topographic prominence. Most of these ...
Townsend Townsend (pronounced tounʹ-zənd) or Townshend may refer to:
Places United States
*Camp Townsend, National Guard training base in Peekskill, New York
*Townsend, Delaware
*Townsend, Georgia
*Townsend, Massachusetts, a New England town
** Townsend ...
Townsend Townsend (pronounced tounʹ-zənd) or Townshend may refer to:
Places United States
*Camp Townsend, National Guard training base in Peekskill, New York
*Townsend, Delaware
*Townsend, Georgia
*Townsend, Massachusetts, a New England town
** Townsend ...